Samuel J Fox: The Day I Realized Love is a Finite Resource
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Disgust
The blood from my lip
I
fingers roll
two in
between
feels like a single scale
slick from. a
serpents back.
Yes I hit him,
there
in
the
suburban
sprawl
of
icy
fields,
after calling me a word that
tasted
of
copper-gush
on
the
tongue.
He hit me back. I realize now
some
words don’t
work
the
same as
snow
falling,
that all
too
familiar sound
of God folding his arms while watching us burn to ash.
Achilles Mourns
For so long, I had been wrapping your gauze.
Even before the War. First your wrists,
next your heels, then your shield arm.
Now it is most of you that I wrap
for there is none of you left to watch over me.
I throw what’s left of your funeral pyre
on my shoulders, arms, torso, and legs.
I wipe the ash under my eyes. You once
kissed me there. Now there are no more lips,
nor are there words, to calm my fever.
Now, under these deaf-mute stars, I must
polish my armor. I am told if I avenge you
I too will die. When I was a babe, my mother
washed me in the river Styx, held by my heel.
My last act of kindness was to wash your wounds.
I kissed your heel once. I for too long have lit
the battlefield with spear spark and shine, and you,
dear shadow, were the one who struck
by my side, like a second silhouette.
Under these wordless stars, I promise you this:
Patroclus, I will kill for you as you have died
for me, wearing this, my armor. Even now,
I wipe your blood away and fold this rag
and use it as a bedding cloth. My friend,
before this war is over, I will hold you again
even if it is cold where we lie, dark and foggy
in Hades. If I must die to avenge you,
allow me my arrogance; for you were all
I had to soften this anger, for you alone
knew how to heal a wound in me uncleanable.
The State of Things
No ideas for how this morning is an afterglow:
a fall-out dome for how yesterday was decidedly against me.
The national flag is at half-mast. I have half the heart to take it down.
It has never unraveled itself for me, for people like me,
still palpitating a heart in our hands, eager
for anyone out there who will stand for us, who will stand with us.
I’m queer. I don’t always wish to identify as a man
for all men do in my country is bare their arms and drive lifted trucks
with a flag serpentine in the wind that reads don’t tread on me.
I wouldn’t dare do what you’ve already done to me.
And your white Jesus? Would he have turned his cheek
or would he have accepted a Glock 19 as sacrifice?
So much blood is let in this country without anyone who will clot it
with the pressure of their witness.
This morning, the trees haggard as the last night’s televised speech,
I stand if only to remember I can. When I do,
a flock of cardinals is frightened of my shadow; they rise
into a handsome geyser of blood.
The Day I Realized Love is a Finite Resource
When I surprised my mother with I’m bisexual,
her face paled as though splashed with milk,
which has the same texture as fear.
We eat sweets at our table:
mint chocolate chip cookies. I am twenty-three.
She tries to brush off my words
like the fly now trapped against the blinds
and the window, its wings
humming, its body confused as to why
there was sunlight, but it isn’t free.
I remember her stifling tears, as if
I had sworn away any sort of resemblance
as her son. She would later come to terms
by saying that I am confused: I do not know
who I fully am yet. Time would tell.
I remember that day: I keep thinking
of the dead fly and milk and the man I kissed
just the day before.
I remember that day: I kept
my voice locked in its dark, red room
until further notice, until I realized
love is much like sunlight through glass.
These poems originally appeared in our ebook The Queer Body.
Samuel J Fox is a bisexual writer of poems and essays living in the Southern US. He is poetry editor for Bending Genres LLC; he appears in numerous online and print journals. When not writing, you can find him in coffee shops, dilapidated places, and graveyards, depending. He tweets (@samueljfox).
