The Tin Boy as Lover You Don't Have to Love
"Lace your fingers through mine, boy.
Tilt your head close to mine, boy."
He says it like a question,
fingers my collar, sniffs my
lilac & cigar paper hair.
There's the chastity belt,
There's the rye-burned roof
of my fetching mouth.
He knows I'm the question,
lethe between my unshaved thighs,
glory-hole of green glass,
mare bit sprayed with liquid hay,
so drunk I can't talk anyway.
A Lamb Expressed Fluorescence and Made it to Market or the Tin Boy’s Gone Real Emerald City
10,000 specimens of Aequorea victoria gave us GFP,
which gave us the lamb on your plate & me,
boy injecting fluorescent proteins into skin patches
hoping they'll catch.
Witness, I'm going to radiate green as the skyscrapers
in this fair city--your Westie in a bike basket
seen through night vision goggles.
Come here, Witness, I will light your trail
with a saffron mouse glow.
Let's bedazzle ourselves
until we drip green plastic jewels,
two hologram kittens.
Come here, Witness, I will light your trail,
wave my stinging cells,
& fluoresce your way.
Wren Hanks is the author of Prophet Fever (Hyacinth Girl Press) and Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press). A 2016 Lambda Emerging Writers Fellow, his recent work appears or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2016, DIALOGIST, Jellyfish Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and tweets @suitofscales.
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