Brother, there’s so much that I could never say
to your face, a mythic thing.
Lately I’ve been pacing
’round the analogue autumnneither of us
existed in, cuticlelesskicking the same
stone up and down the pavement
outside tenement buildings,out my mind
on fortified wine and football scores
to hide otherness.
the body sexualised as male
resists arrest,sinks deeper into cerulean apology,uranus rains
diamonds.

[left home rented a room
spinning with mould] it almost turned me
straight
[woke up gay
as ever] on the revolving
jail cell floor
me & my notquiteninety days
[still flying       from the night before]
the crowded urinal made [a queer fight
club] of mypositionality
i become my maker in [these jazzed falls
staggered] the hard shoulder [length
of a psychiatrist’s waiting list]
needingfor fluids or gender [not to
drown in]
en route
to [pluck all the hairs from this body
&] start from [scratch]the red light
leans so adoringlyon self
-inflicted traffic& little wrecked
childhoods           [everywhere]

i’m in love again
sorry
to romanticise
private enterprise but
what is named can be felt
& if we do not take
into ourselves,we wither
anyway 

I need new words to explain
the things I’m capable of with my shirt untucked,
the things I’m capable of
inalienably—I’d un-it all
if I could,my life
entirely
our own.

Image © Stuart Crawford