mmmmmclxxv

’til the cows come home

mom died last saturday.  i was
never brooding or suicidal – nor was i
a bad boy.  really.  bad, brooding and suicidal 

were rather characteristics i wanted, were the desired traits of 

my coming of age sexuality.  as in i wanted them in me.
or at least to find and then hold tightly onto someone

who had them, impossible as it would have been for 
me to take either on, to be kevin bacon in

footloose.  as i got older i became a fantastic dancer.
so i got to be that.  what eventually made me sexy was
the dancing.  but no brooding, no bad boy.  most often when
i dance what radiates from me is whimsy.  and gratitude.

my appeal, when it exists, is that of a good, happy guy who
dances with intermingling grace and awkwardness, gliding in and
around the other dancing figures in a clunky-stealthy fashion,
from the far end of the dancefloor, all the way to the dj booth and 

back.  my optimism dims, but never that much.  i  want to live 

forever.  i can sometimes pretend i’m a bad guy, i can adjust my face
in ways that might suggest a yellow flag, that i perhaps might best

be approached with caution.  i’ve come of age, the last in a long line, 

am wistful every once in a while, albeit rarely, between when the 

club closes and when the sun appears on the horizon.  and when that sun 

shows up, my world is filled with joy, if with a lessening clarity.  eyesight

dissipates with age.  i adjust my glasses and walk home

as daybreak hits, enjoying just this once the solitude,
walk up the stairs of my apartment building, unlock my door
and close it behind me again against the
brightly lit city that i so love.