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ARIZONA WILDCAT

​​The little men in sateen short shorts
 
running across screens in unison
 
represent pockets of the nation
 
I am flying over and falling
 
against my better judgment
 
in love with, I, a devout homo-
 
sexual stirred easily and deeply
 
by pinking desert mountains,
 
the choreographed generosity
 
happening up and down the aisle,
 
what you could call the river
 
of our pleasant airborne village,
 
the banks all steeped with sleepers
 
in their safety-tested thrones ―
 
safety — what exactly is that,
 
the eye burned backward
 
in my head finding at last its
 
merciful rest, the Wildcat
 
investing in his foe a shred of trust ―
 
trust — a word I shouldn’t use
 
in measures of shred, as though
 
it were the lime I am stabbing
 
to death in my tumbler, no small
 
or citrus thing is this, something
 
I consider when my brother asks me
 
via Messenger — Would you like this
 
— of a blue satin dress too small
 
in the bust for them, my gentle brother
 
several red states away, their gender
 
newly blooming, a truth I am blessed
 
in privy witness to — Would you like
 
this — and the Wildcat leaps balletically
 
in replicate toward the glory cheered
 
upon in living rooms beneath me and
 
in the hearts of Arizonans however
 
far from home, however far from
 
home I am, my brother is my brother,
 
unless of course they find a truer word
 
for kinship, what a transcontinental flight
 
language is, what a game of costumed teams,
 
noun after noun falling from my mouth,
 
like eggs into foam coffins, like strangers
 
falling deeply into safe and unafraid
 
and utterly undifferentiated sleep.
Picture
Paul Klee. The Chair-Animal, Watercolor and transferred printing ink on paper, bordered with gouache, mounted on cardboard, 1922. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Kyle Dacuyan’s recent poems appear in DIAGRAM, Lambda Literary, and Best New Poets 2016. With the collective CITIZENS UNITED, he curates a quarterly cabaret of poetry, drag, music, and performance. He lives in Brooklyn. His website is www.kyledacuyan.com.
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  • Home
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    • Masthead
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    • Issue Nine
    • Issue Ten
    • Issue Eleven
    • Issue Twelve
    • Issue Thirteen
    • Issue Fourteen
    • Issue Fifteen
  • Guidelines