doppelgänger

Queer utopians think human beings are perfectible

but we’re not, we’re just correctable.

In an hourly motel, I recall that Kim Addonizio poem about tattoos

& ask you how many you have, although I count fourteen

every time you doze & add your spit to the mysterious stains on the pillows.

But the ink proliferates in twilight’s sticky gold: is a cover-up

                                                    one or two or three tattoos?

& how many about your forced disappearances?

& how many about the appearance of manhood?

& how many about being a man

with his face buried in pillows—

                     a short, black man hydroplaning down our impossible?

 

I hate how much I love

when you suck my toes & I despise you

for making me beg. That’s why I can’t know you, that’s why I stay

perpetually ahead of your judgment. You look just like me

when I’m fucking  you from behind.

                           I’ll suck that shrimp cock ’till the glove pops

plus one extra wop before I figure it out. I don’t know god anymore

but let’s stay here on our knees & wait for him to come.