THE MAN I MET ON GRINDR
says we didn’t meet
on Grindr, says it’s best
left to the imagination
of what our spouses
might say if they were
real. I get it. Someone
shares a naked pic
which gets you all
worked up. Next thing
you’re gassing up
your car at two a.m.
willing to put your life
on the line, should you
leave a note for your
children to find
just in case things go
South? Been there.
Done that. A stranger’s
fluids drying in my hair
without any need
to explain. Coming home
a new man is not
to be underestimated,
not by a long shot
and I’ve got a drawer
full of losing scratch
tickets to prove it
so why don’t you get
off your high horse
and ride my cock—
A HUNTER’S MOON
You left your passport
in the backseat of a cab,
too much in a rush to tip
the driver, something you’ll
pay for later, your affair
a maxed-out credit card
with an interest rate
so low you don’t even bother
to scrape the mud off
your flippers. Your husband
looks good in a Speedo
especially when he bellyflops
off the high board—
everyone gathering around
the smorgasbord, drawn
to unseen viral loads
making their rounds, no one
yet knowing we’ll be
trapped on the poop deck
for days, weeks, until someone
pulls the plugs on wheezing
ventilators, who knows how many lifeboats will be launched by then before we return to shore.
Maybe you too
have heard
all the fetuses
in Texas
crying out in
a choral round:
It’s my body,
I can die
if I want to!
It’s my body
I can die
if I want to!
You would
cry too if you
were filled with
some rapist’s
pearly goo—
RANCID COVID ODE
What to do
with cock-
roach sized
knotholes
in your grand-
ma’s cutting
board you’ve
offered to
re-sand and
prime with
mineral oil
restoring
the wood to
a smoothness
it hasn’t seen
in decades
preserving
an heirloom
soaked in blood
that dripped
off her cleaver
every holiday
you can still
remember her
tins of Mutual
of Omaha
baking powder
you never knew
exactly what
she used it
for while Daddy
was glued
to the telly
watching his
fave Red Skins
trounce a team
whose name
you no longer
can recall who
cares if Mia
was taken off
a butter box
while your
has-been
abuela kept
choking on
a COVID bone
your neighbors
tossed onto
the backyard
barbecue grill
when no one
was looking
LOVE POEM
His ideas were more than practiced legerdemain.
His was an inside joke outsiders never got.
Hawt!
Let us go then, you and me.
The sea was not a Covid mask, no more was she.
You get my point.
Or don’t.
That’s the fun of it, isn’t it, the lubed-up slippage sloshing in-between.
I wrote a letter to someone who sometimes wrote back.
Imagine that!
Writing backwards.
Blank sheets held to bare bulbs till the words burned through.
DESIRE
The porno was kept
on the most exalted shelf
at the Country Club Pharmacy
and I knew the pharmacist
had a clear line of vision
where he stood a few steps above
the rest of us, counting out
the meds my mother took to
stabilize her moods. The wire rack
spun round with super heroes
who once could be had
for a quarter even if I had lost
all interest. Somehow I’m able
to date my true desire
to January 1981 when
Sam “Flash Gordon” Jones
flashed his glossy johnson between
the covers of a Playgirl if only
I could find my way
under him. I shit you not
when I say this is all I remember
of my freshman year—
Playboy, Oui, and Hustler
about as sexy as the face
of Gorbachev on the cover
tip toe when the pharmacist looked
the other way and I
grabbed it, stuffed that thing
down my pants, I was through
those double glass doors
and pumping hard on my Huffy
all the way back home.
Timothy Liu's next book of poems, Down Low and Lowdown: Bedside Bottom Feeder Blues, is forthcoming from Barrow Street in Spring 2023. A reader of occult esoterica, he teaches at SUNY New Paltz and lives in Woodstock, NY. www.timothyliu.net