WINTER

As a homosexual who, for most of Time, was not yet born,

I must be blunt: what I do inquiring of seasons has more to do

with concealment than iteration. The first dusting of snow

covers the tennis court’s broad shoulders like a mink fur coat

and less like a simile dressing the acrylic surface in masculinity.

Forgive me, Ashbery, I am imitating your imitation of Bashō

because I want to, and not because I think anyone will question

when I tongue the rim of a cider bottle. If we called the aspen

forest, “legs multiplying from the snowbank,” and instead

of eyes, insisted their dark knots were unbleached assholes,

we might understand each other’s pain better. I got a hand job

in the gym locker room because I was bored of being able to

fuck with the curtains pulled open as traffic outside filled my

ornamental wreath with seasonal music! It’s like when we were

done hiding in poems, we made a sport of romanticizing it.

Like football players cosplaying gladiators in an ice-slicked

colosseum, because what is more American than imitation?

If I have spoken out of line, let’s redefine Time as a winterberry

bush, and when the next boy is plucked like the syntax of a

gerund turning past tense, he will greet us where the soil is

too cold to know it is wet.

A nightmare seems too strong a verb for some trees trembling

in the backyard.