ARIZONA WILDCAT
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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. |
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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.