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"Being Gay With You Is Like" by AJ Dehany

        Being gay with you is like

being tied up

             in a sleeping bag

in a bath  

        of warm to warmish

             water and soft

                 string quintet

             ritornelles half-heard

                 through the half-open

             windows of a half-near

music school.   And if

I could only half-love you

maybe the sad bath

would stop over-

                 flowing and flooding  

the practice room, ruining

the cream/ochre carpet

                 we have hated; look how

the skirting board peels

                 in curls of cracked eggshell.

When we're together I’m

                 a needle in a compass

                              spinning and never

                 ever resting. I loved you like

the North Pole

                 shifting from one

                 ice floe to the next

iceberg, the sky

melting and boiling

                 in warmish acidic

                 mist and lost

                 time, whenever

                 there's a purple hole

in the moment. It's hard

to remember how

                 we met or when

                 exactly

             or why

             we were there

or who

             the other guy was

                 or why he was dead.

        Being gay with you is like

I remember being tied

                 up in a sleeping bag,

warm to warmish water

licking over my face then

                 you cut the cord,

pushed open the bag—

I stuck my head out

I looked into your bright

                 bluish green

                              yellow reddish

                 ochre and cracked eggshell

                 eyes and you

you looked into mine.