Author: tgifreytag

The Bull

He stood alone in the backyard, so dark
the night purpled around him.
I had no choice. I opened the door
& stepped out. Wind
in the branches. He watched me with kerosene
-blue eyes. What do you want? I asked, forgetting I had
no language. He kept breathing,
to stay alive. I was a boy—
which meant I was a murderer
of my childhood. & like all murderers, my god
was stillness. My god, he was still
there. Like something prayed for
by a man with no mouth. The green-blue lamp
swirled in its socket. I didn’t
want him. I didn’t want him to
be beautiful—but needing beauty
to be more than hurt gentle
enough to hold, I
reached for him. I reached—not the bull—
but the depths. Not an answer but
an entrance the shape of
an animal. Like me.

■

Morning Love Poem

Dreamt last night I fed you, unknowingly,
something you were allergic to.

And you were gone, like that.

You don’t have even a single allergy,
but still. The dream cracked. Cars nose-dived

off snow banks into side streets. Sometimes
dreams slip poison, make the living

dead then alive again, twirling
in an unfamiliar room.

It’s hard to say I need you enough.

Today I did. Walked into your morning
shower fully clothed. All the moments

we stop ourselves just because we might
feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.

■

Iris Song

You go outside and the trees don’t know
You’re black. The lilacs will chatter and break
Themselves real bloom, real boon,
No matter your gender. You matter.
Who in you is most material, so
You matter. Your afro gone touch the sky.
Come up from the ground looking extra fly,
Come up from the ground looking extra, fly,
I will touch the sky. I—open my mouth,
And my whole life falls out.

■

Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992

I forgot how lush and electrified
it was with you. The shaggy
fragrant zaps continually passing
back and forth, my fingertip
to your clavicle, or your wrist
rubbing mine to share gardenia
oil. We so purred like dragonflies
we kept the mosquitoes away
and the conversation was heavy,
mother-lacerated childhoods
and the sad way we’d both
been both ignored and touched
badly. Knowing that being
fierce and proud and out and
loud was just a bright new way
to be needy. Please don’t listen to me, oh
what a buzz! you’re the only one
I can tell. Even with no secret,
I could come close to your ear
with my mouth and that was
ecstasy, too. We barely touched
each other, we didn’t have to
speak. The love we made leapt
to life like a cat in the space
between us (if there ever was
space between us), and looked
back at us through fog. Sure,
this was San Francisco, it was
often hard to see. But fog always
burned off, too, so we watched
this creature to see if it knew
what it was doing. It didn’t.

■

When White Boys Ask to See My Hair

My hair is not taking any visitors right now.

My hair was used as a banner on the moon.

My hair is belly dancing on an auntie’s tabletop.

My hair fell off the long line at Mt. Everest trying to take a selfie.

My hair is flipping off an ICE raider after he barges into her favorite deli, arresting her neighbors.

My hair is Medusa’s second cousin, the strands slithering along your throat. Avert your gaze for your own good.

My hair was captured from the exotic Manu wilderness and caged for a popular circus show.

My hair is ducking beneath a desk, trying to recall the drills, math sheets falling in a white rain.

My hair escaped an arranged marriage to sail the Red Sea with a crew of burly pirates. She is busy battling maritime brigands and trying not to get lost.

My hair is under siege in Yemen, her home recently bombed, her children buried under the rubble. I am not entirely sure if she will make it out alive.

My hair was abducted by aliens. Rumor has it they spun her into a star. That might be her there, winking down at you.

My hair was mauled on a Tanzanian Safari. I found a few leftover curls flossed between a caracal’s fangs.

My hair joined a deep-rooted Bedouin tribe. She enjoys feeding nomadic camels from her palm, became the shaykh’s third wife, and sings ancient poetry into campfires. She is happy. I don’t think she is coming back.

■

Brian Age 7

Grateful for their tour
of the pharmacy,
the first-grade class
has drawn these pictures,
each self-portrait taped
to the window-glass,
faces wide to the street,
round and available,
with parallel lines for hair.

I like this one best: Brian,
whose attenuated name
fills a quarter of the frame,
stretched beside impossible
legs descending from the ball
of his torso, two long arms
springing from that same
central sphere. He breathes here,

on his page. It isn’t craft
that makes this figure come alive;
Brian draws just balls and lines,
in wobbly crayon strokes.
Why do some marks
seem to thrill with life,
possess a portion
of the nervous energy
in their maker’s hand?

That big curve of a smile
reaches nearly to the rim
of his face; he holds
a towering ice cream,
brown spheres teetering
on their cone,
a soda fountain gift
half the length of him
—as if it were the flag

of his own country held high
by the unadorned black line
of his arm. Such naked support
for so much delight! Artless boy,
he’s found a system of beauty:
he shows us pleasure
and what pleasure resists.
The ice cream is delicious.
He’s frail beside his relentless standard.

■

For Your New Home

God bless this house; our folks live here.
It is their dwelling so is dear
To them and us, and may we pray
That Thou wilt live here with them every day?

May this new home enrich the life of each
May goodness, grace and joy be goals to reach.
In hardship, heartache or in pain
May they seek Thee, wilt Thou sustain?

We do not ask to see Thy total plan
For all their lives, but day by day we can
As when the green leaves rise from loam
See growth revealed. GOD BLESS THIS HOME.

■

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

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