Before there were girls, there was you, us.
He-Man, The X-Men. You always had
the bigger collection; I, more imagination:
Let’s use your mom’s yarn; let’s string
a zipline so that our heroes can really fly!
The best part of sleepover: pretend-play
in your bathtub. Pew-pew! Pew-pew! You
can’t get me, Skeletor! Soapsuds make
the best defense. Pew-pew! Pew-pew! Hit
me if you can, Magneto! By the time
your mom called us, our hair was dry, our
fingers prunes, the water cool. Ten more
minutes, please! We’d get five. Then time
for bed. PJs, now! I’d sleep with He-Man;
you, Wolverine. Nothing’s as awesome as
claws! Nuh-uh, a power sword’s so much
cooler! In bed, you’d clench your masked,
gloved mutant; me, my breastplated,
helmeted spaceman. Lights off, gentlemen!
In only nightlight, we’d whisper still,
doing our best to fool your mom, trying to
keep each other awake, too. Heads atop
your X-Men pillows, bodies beneath your
matching comforter, we’d fall asleep,
warm and peaceful, in one another’s arms.
Chaste
We agreed to date for the summer,
privately confessed we disliked
sex. If, by sex, one means
penetration. We chose
to have none.
Some say That’s cute. Pure.
Oh, if only they knew—there’s more
more ways than one
to be intimate. Heretical.
Surely, we weren’t the only couple.
Little urges to do more than
this: press lips, gently nibble
each other’s curves. No
intention to go much further.
Though we liked to denude each
other, studious, admiring one another’s
ancient marble, neither of us
thought of the other, I want
to screw that sculpture.
It’s a relief you’re not drawn
to figures. I’m not
built like a Roman warrior.
Whatever we may be missing,
we’re no less incomplete
than those defaced,
broken antiquities.
Nor any less unique.
The Church might’ve praised us,
blessed us, claimed us
as models of self-control—fruit
of the Holy Spirit, yet proof of piety.
Sorry to hoist your hopes, Father,
but it would be blasphemous
to call us Catholic. The closest
we ever came to that was incense
and leather, wounds from whips,
collared discipline,
submission. Oh, Oh, mortification! Such pleasure
ended in the fall.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher, a BIPOC writer, currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio, The BeZine, Clips and Pages, Door is a Jar, DoubleSpeak, Flora Fiction, FlowerSong Press, fws: a journal of literature & art, Half Hour to Kill, Lone Stars, MONO., New Feathers, OneBlackBoyLikeThat Review, riverSedge, Synkroniciti, The Thing Itself, TEJASCOVIDO, Unlikely Stories Mark V, voicemail poems, Voices de la Luna, and Waco WordFest. His work has also been featured at The Briscoe Western Art Museum.
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