i don’t go to gay bars anymore
BY JACQUES J. RANCOURT
someone tells me & sure enough
another boards up soon there won’t be
a need for places like these anymore
there’s a word for what we lose
when we’ve gained our utopias
have all been urban have all been set
like jewels across the coasts we’re from
different elsewheres evenings I sat
with my father to watch fish flick
the pond until dark I’ll never go back
there isn’t a queer pastoral for a reason
though it doesn’t hurt anymore
does it I hold your hand through public
parks the eucalyptus trees all
peel overhead into strips the koi
flutter through we see another gay couple
making out on a bench & some days
it seems we’ve found it a holy city
swollen with light & sound
on the back of the tongue so close
you could almost swallow it
I know it won’t last I’ve read
every myth somewhere a western wall
still holds our prayers in its teeth
I want to be seen I want to live
like in Jerusalem right before or right after
it was sieged
