At last the crickets
I wish they’d slow
Wound much too tightly
Like a teenagers first
Sexual experience too fast
What’s needed is intimacy
The slowed heartbeat of
A sleeping lover the
Rolling surf of his
Shallow breathing absent of
The days deep sighs
But instead I hear
The chirp chirp chirp
Of now now now
Not sleep sleepy sleeping
Tonight I won’t sleep
Until the moon does
The white fat man
That gobbles up stars
And once fully filled
Lays beneath West’s horizon
As his sister sun
Glows giddy for dawn
Wearing her yellow dress
Night bombarded by dreams
Blood on my soul
I feel it pulsing
As wave after wave
Crashes against the breaker
Overtaking my mind’s levee
And drowning sleeps hope
Awake now and shaking
Monster under my bed
Hides behind my eyelids
In a world of
Pronouns where labels define
What we are rather
Than who we are
Is it any surprise
That when we insist
Me we lose we
Most all okay most
Most of us behave
Like we’re in the
Fitting room of life
Trying on tossing off
Twirling and imagining wondering
If this makes me
Look good desirable better
A catch to catch
Some buy themselves armor
Meant to dissuade protect
Make it nearly impossible
I’m not a nudist
But there’s something to
Be said about nakedness
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 