It had been raining for ten years—
just after our vows too, when the life
of the party shouted “Drop dead.”
What aplomb! All those faithless Springs
suddenly worthless. Years of abandonment
counting for nothing. Oh horrors of
enchantment, beauty of truculence.
You can always depend upon the hostility of lovers
But we, a glamorous, shuddering chorus,
eyes averted, move en pointe past
the confessional’s lurid glow,
that peep-show of self-pity. Really, Mary!

As if our holy yawns don’t prove
we’re simply riddled with purity
and will float softly, silently
as the dreams of the inconsolable rhinoceri,
pitiable as the tears of lost seagulls,
sure as Adam’s apple pie, straight to heaven.
The angels’ impatience says we’ve
all prayed for too little and they
can’t wait to scold us. God’s redecorating.
He wants all his darlings back.

Oh Frank. Have you missed us terribly,
whom you never met? I picture your daily
grand jeté over the sun, knowing the moon
never tires of loving you. I long to change
costumes and visit. Let’s see. Blandishments,
pitchforks, foreskins. Well! But then Edward
told me you had the longest he’d ever seen.
My mother loved me so I got to keep mine,
ensuring that there I would always be a goy.
Just knowing that I’ve kissed lips that once
kissed yours—but enough. Discretion is
the better part of careerism. Now there
is only one poet I love to read while dreaming.

We met over 40 years ago. Floating buttocky halves
  spooned into pastel fruit bowls, even drowned in
    Del Monte syrup, love at first taste. Your flesh

a luminous hue, hovering on the border of cream
  and August skies; your flavor pure as dreamed pleasure
    grazing my waking tongue, a melting sweetness

streaming down my throat; your name, a single syllable
  promising delight: pear, barely sound, mere parting of lips,
    and hint of breath, apple-green p, the sweetest

diphthong ea, all the air in the world, closed in rounded rr‘d
  finality. A perfect word, reducing your rumpled, pinnacled
    self, to one gorgeous, Old English syllable: per.

Right now, six of you sit ripening on my windowsill.
  A sky-blue towel shields bottoms against further bruising
    from the wood even at birth you instinctively flee, hanging

off trees in swelling green-gold tears, yearning for earth,
  or growing to maturity in bottled, olive-green light, your dying
    breath suffusing aging liqueurs like the oldest I ever drank,

the summer I was 19, a century-old brandy served in snifters
  the likes of which this working-class boy had never seen.
    I tilted the giant crystal bowl; the fragrant liquid elongated

in mimicry of its remembered self and seeped into my mouth: a pear’s
  ghost enveloped in flame lay down to rest on my tongue. We both
    were saved, at least for that night. Pear. Look of women I love

but don’t lust after, I want to conjugate you: I pear, you pear,
  we pear. Like raspberries, Mozart and love, for me, sufficient proof
    of God’s existence. I trust you. Lead me by the tongue to heaven.

When I was a child, I had a problem.
I knew, with the naked knowing of youth,
I was queer, and would be all my life.

I also knew not to tell anyone.
Who would want to hear this?
Silence said: “Be silent.

Your desperation’s your own.”
I kept quiet, as best I could,
and walked quietly out of childhood.

for Claire Daly*

One day, you will be as naked as an animal.
Let that day come before you die.

The wolf will be your friend when you are no longer a wolf.
When you no longer flee from God, birds will no longer flee from you.

They will sit on your shoulder and listen to your song,
your soul’s steady hum.

The lion will welcome you into his pride and rest at your feet.
The peacock will be eager to stand with you.

When you no longer pose in furs and feathers, stealing
a glory that isn’t yours, all glory will be revealed.

When you leave this world the world comes back to you.
And the world will teach you how to love.

Let God pour in.
Then give it all back.