TRENTON POLLARD

METHAMPHETAMINE

A man-without a high
invites a man-with over
because there is an hour
of night in everyone
that should be held
and he admires the way
the man-with says,
"this is what I've done,
can I still come?"
The man-with looks
down when he enters,
and as they undress
the man-without sees glimpses
of his eyes, their dilated
sparkle, and is charmed,
even though it is what it is
the man-without thinks
there is an optimistic
if sassy version of this,
a light red lipstick called
"4 A.M Romance."
Naked now, the man-with thinks
the streetlight is a video camera,
and the man-without sympathizes
because he often confuses
this light outside his window
for the moon. Have you
ever been given the nectar
of boiled batteries,
dried, re-liquefied,
and slammed to feel
alive? Not alone?
Placed a sheet over your window
because the half-dark was too bright.
They lay blankets
across wooden floors
in vain to get away
from the light, trying each
angle and corner of the room.
The man-with smacks candy
to save his teeth and the man-without
wonders what is it in us that
defiles innocence as he kisses
the man-with's chest because
he is astonishingly handsome
and could be a father someday.
Too far gone, the man-without thinks
it would be wrong to continue
even though the man-with whispers,
"Just give it to me," but the man
-without can't anymore, either,
so they just lay there kissing
and holding each other
in moonlight which is what
the man-without wanted
anyway. And for him
to stay passed the time
when there's nothing left to say.
There but for the grace
of god go I. For the purple
world the man-with dresses
and leaves, and, living
on an island, no matter
which way he turns,
the man-with walks
toward the sea.

CESSATION PRAYER

That my lungs will last my possible children
and that I will choose them over nicotine
That the chemicals my body makes for itself
to be enough and all the Appalachian fields
be given back to trees      That these pictures
of blackened death help me not quicken
my pace toward my own, that I not
think about my father each time I smoke
That my tongue would taste less cynical
and that my teeth would be as pearls in the cold
Canadian sea       That I could not do things
even when my loves around me are doing them
and that I give more than I take from strangers
If I lose something, let it only be my voice
creaking now from whisper to uncertainty
Never to be my desire to be but from here
Let me enjoy being alive more and find
this joy everywhere      Let me keep my breath,
filled once again as it was in the beginning
with the spirit of God     For this I give my heart

FAMILY PORTRAIT

It was a fiction, feeling ashamed.
I was proud of the flowers growing
out of what had been my chest,

and of the summer home
we built by the lake
with what we could find.

Between the flowers and our home,
a second dream: we married
and gave birth to three colors.

Magenta was the eldest
and most reliable. She learned
to read at age three and helped

with her younger colors
Iris and Chartreuse.
The wars ended but we lost

our jobs and retired to the lake
full-time. You and your tasteful
collection of spoons and seeds,

each in their own place
in our little off-grid home
we powered with the sun.

In the third dream
the children were watercolors
and faded in the rain;

in the fourth
their teeth fell out
and they became astronauts.

The first Iris to orbit Jupiter,
our last years spent waiting
for our middle child’s return.

No. Our children
were never born—in the last
dream neither were we.

PROVINCETOWN

A man on the ferry tells me that next year he will sail around the world
with his lover. I want something less grand, but don’t know what.

I make new friends in a wood-shingled condo.
The pale moon rises and unfades, unaware it will dematerialize

in the morning. Across the bay the angle of the sun
sets large glass panes aflame. We stop talking to savor in silence

the brief flickering of these unnamed buildings.
Later that night a man in Las Vegas shoots 560 people

at a country music concert. When this happens
I am in the basement of a leather party at a bar called Purgatory,

chatting with a man whose lover died last year. I say, “I’m sorry,”
and he says that he is at peace and that his lover was often a jerk.

One evening and night here and already the mind
beached by friendship, violence, the moon, and the sea.

How long does one stay, and why
is it a sign of loyalty to survive another winter?

Originally from Michigan, Trenton Pollard is a queer writer in Queens. His poems and essays have recently been published in Passages North, The Critical Flame, Bennington Review, North American Review, and elsewhere.