IN CAMBRIDGE


A platter
of murdered cheese
on a cracker
why does it matter
in your easy chair
campaigning
for peace
on your lap top,
your neighbor Rick
comes by
who is now ex male
thinning his air
uncut,
with highlighted henna
once wishing to be
a Bruce Jenner,
but now to be a female
as model and mannequin
in a twisted sister
store window,
chilling out
his captive hands geared
for sunshine on the roof deck
turning bronze
not wishing to be
a Harvard Square
in a once all clear world
that queers him
after Nam
and Uncle Sam put him
on his wheelchair of torture
from his muscled culture
reported in time
for his own space
when his rich parents
threw him out
with a once homeless scent
of incorrect encounters
when he was a bouncer
in the straight/gay bar
with the fearful dark light
in hidden corners
when silence
is frozen
in daily nightmares
of your chosen identity
down long corridors
here in Cambridge
dropping his specs
talking flat swear words
delicately scrawling
little poems of graffiti
asking me in the hallways
to always turn out
the lights
by floorboard ears
I play sax all night
in the mute hours
on newly painted
billboards and scaffolds
on days you cannot exchange.