Aphelion
peter laberge
Orlando
They are the boys I could’ve been
had my body slimmed & dropped
like a comet into the barrel of the gun—
though even in the face of smoke
they don’t apologize for being queer. By dawn
the club is taxidermied—preserved
in memory, despite the trace of a pulse.
In his dream, a dying boy is locked
in the unlit cellar of his childhood home
with no candle & no mouth. Once a queer body
is the only bullet in the gun, the man
re-loads & watches his warped face
in each gold cylinder. Meanwhile, God
drops the moon into a foxhole, fingers
laced together as the bleeding boys
reach for each other in his hands. Regret
is something these men do not possess.
How queer & red God’s stained hands turn.
Previously appeared in Tin House
60