cruising: a broken tiara

the night's thick with circling predators. i used to untie
myself and walk into its hunger. peel away fingers
and skin until eyes climbed into back pockets, tongue
watering the sidewalk. in my wake, a field of belts

sprouted from the concrete, flailing their leathered
famine, patient to bind and to lash. the night, i walked
that desperate stretch until the sun unbuckled itself
from the dark, in that half light i met many men

all with the same hands. i wore the night’s bridle in
my hair turning its axis, the backseats of taxi cabs
spilling over with limbs, flood of spit from between
the sewer’s teeth, lips bit until they brayed and bled.
                  
my god, my good god, to be a lamb again, dressed
in my finest garments, young, unsheared, pressed.

..

my god, my good god, to be a lamb again, dressed
for slaughter. before claws ripped through the beds
of my nails, before incisors split gums wide. before
eyes narrowed into the slits of a sickle, i was perfect.

my body, my good body, still wet with my mother’s
last blood, red legs unfolding petals, graceless under
my torso. my whole hand wrapped around a finger.
language, a simple dance, i’d just learned to step inside.

but nostalgia always wears an ugly crown of teeth.
the greasy stain of my young body pressed between
encyclopedias, mouth a rash with no remedy, skin
the hungry cabinet i crawled out from within.

this street of one eyed gods, the flashlight king
this name moaned in the dark, the shadows sing.

…

moan my name, the dark shadows sang back
pressed against a brick wall in my thick coat
howling only when the boy’s mouth is a perfect
circle. i have been a man with many names

he calls out the one scrawled inside my jacket
that gleaming pocket watch, gold leaf over plastic,
hand over mouth, i bite down until blood flows
from his fingers, a signature claiming my lips.

when police shine their search light, it is a perfect
circle, my throat a scarlet wound marked by the kill.
that boy, gone now, clutching the lamb folded in him.
me, a snarled wool stain awaiting interrogation.

i used to untie the night, before it swallowed me.
my god, my awful body, my good teeth.

BY SAM SAX

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Sam Sax is the first ever Bay Area Unified Grand Slam Champion and Oakland’s first two-time queer Grand Slam Champion. He curates 'The New Sh!t Show', a reading series in San Francisco and facilitates regular intergenerational writing workshops. You can find more of his work in Rattle, PANK, The Evergreen Review, Gertrude, The Nervous Breakdown, and other journals.