Early on, we swam at dawn
after hours dancing in a throbbing
nightclub. We undressed on the dock.
Half high, half strangers, under sky
pale yellow and grey. Both night
and day, black leather boots
under a pile of damp jeans
tube socks and tank tops.

I am not light
but you carried me like sleep
on your back. My arms wrapped
round your chest,
chin resting on your crown. We leapt
like this, together, into waves.
Under water, we separated
surfaced, climbed a slick, wooden ladder.

One more time! you yelled
naked, shivering, lake
dripped down your thighs.

This morning, in our cold
shower, we bicker
about how to pay
for the furnace while I’m out
of work. Your arms
striped with foam, lathered fingers
tangled in my hair.
Encaustic sapphire eyes.

At the breakfast table
you sit across from me
in a matted white terry robe
stolen from a spa weekend,
belt lost, hanging open,
flashing the ginger and silver
jut of your furred belly.

It’s my turn to wash
our dishes. My hands in a skin
of thick, pink rubber
plunge into the sink.
Crackling suds overflow
to our soaked counter.

Gordon Taylor is a queer emerging poet who walks an ever-swaying wire of technology and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Narrative, Rattle’s Poets Respond, Nimrod, Arc, and more. Gordon was the winner of the 2022 Toronto Arts & Letters Club Foundation Poetry Award and a finalist in the 2023 Gival Press Poetry Award. He writes to invite people into a world they may not have seen.

Appears In

Cagibi Issue 24