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Heterosexual Middle Age Males
by Terry Adams

October 1, 2016 Contributed By: Terry Adams

I lie down with you, I feel my beard crush into your beard,
I remember pressing my 14-year-old face
to a mirror to feel the prized whiskers
crumble back to me.

I finger the lumps on your balding head and you feel me.
Our hair has retreated.
Our stomachs have moved softly out into the world.
When you rise and walk to your shoes

I see the wear, the used look. You hang from your frame
like towels. No soft drink will ever claim you
on TV. I think of you as old full flowers
hanging at dusk from a fire escape

in an alley above a stage door
where those trim young guys would see us hugging and
imagine the AIDS virus boiling off us like flies.
Because I have not stood up, you come back,

drop to one knee, then the next, sway a little in your weight,
and fall on me with a growl that says
we are wrestling, asking would anyone
want to touch you, how shall I try to love you,
how shall I love myself?

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 10 Fall 2016.

Filed Under: Poetry Posted On: October 1, 2016

Further Reading

Valley State
by Reilly Weed

This story was a finalist for the 2021 MAYDAY Fiction Prize   The first letter came on a Monday morning; Patty knew it was Monday because her head hurt from Sunday drink specials. When she opened her eyes, the room spun like it did every morning. “Holy shit!” came her brother’s voice from the kitchen. […]

Proem
by James Capozzi

the end is the end we hate it but for different reasons a shadow moves over California’s open edge its valley full of people but you compare the others to this one filled to the brim with fog and people I see their fires the trash slumbers a blithe slumber, eerie vibe of the beach […]

DOPE by Kelly Daniels

I met the sisters through a roommate referral service, two dark haired girls with round faces, smiling in the doorway of the apartment. Dora was a touch slimmer, and Stephanie had a hoop through an eyebrow. Otherwise, they looked alike. The apartment, or flat as they called it, was a hallway with rooms on either […]

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