For Some Executors of Gay Writers
By Dan Vera
For the manuscript you kept locked up in a wall safe,
For the diaries you made sure would not be discovered,
For the letters from lovers you burned in the furnace,
For the measures you took to tear out their tongues,
For all of the ways you straightened the record,
For the zeal with which you smothered all knowledge,
For condemning the lovers to eternal silence,
May you see their faces in each mirror you gaze in.
May the names of their loved ones ring in your ears.
May you wake in the night to the sound of their fucking,
and be forced to lose sleep to all of their groans.
May the pages you hide catch fire from their smoldering,
till the wall safe explodes and consumes your house whole.
May you escape to find your charmed life in ruins.
May you call out in grief but hear nothing but silence.
Copyright Credit: Dan Vera, "For Some Executors of Gay Writers" from The Space Between Our Danger and Delight. Copyright © 2009 by Dan Vera. Reprinted by permission of Beothuk Books.
Source: The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books, 2009)