The sodomite had been a temporary aberration;
the homosexual was now a species.
               —Foucault¹

               He made darkness his covering around him,
                         his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
                                        —Ps 18:11²

Coming down the road like a storm
zero visibility like
     the most insidious
of minorities, performing

the enviable miracle
of looking normal, I’d warn all
     women who fall for me
I’m only incidentally

attracted to them if only
it worked like that, the ‘Is-he-or-
     isn’t-he?’ debacle
not worth their gamble, not this time

not when I self-identify
as Kinsey 5, where the score falls
     fails to settle the why
I like what I do, the ‘How-the-

fuck could you be…?’ not any help
for those who still want me, somehow
     oblivious to that
fact, that I’m attracted to men

that no matter how aggressive
their attack, no matter how thick
     their hips, how wet their lips
I’m not wired, not right now, to get

off on their kisses and touches
not unless or until his own
     example proves true and
like Kinsey’s, sexuality

moves me to choose fluidity
as my own style, like god’s own breath
     rippling across puddles
creating something more muddled

my mouth gets me into trouble
since what I put in it comes out
     filthy, no matter how
slick my tongue, filthier than some

would expect from one so handsome
songs of so much experience
     too much, perhaps, if love
is what poets have and I lack.

__________
¹Michel Foucault, “Chapter 2: The Perverse Implantation” of “Part Two: The Repressive Hypothesis” in The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction: Translated from the French by Robert Hurley, published at New York by Vintage Books in 1990; page 43.
²“Psalm 18 [17]: Royal Thanksgiving for Victory”, Verse 11, in “The Psalms: Book I” of The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and The Psalms: Revised Standard Version: Second Catholic Edition, published at San Francisco by Ignatius Press in 2006; page 528.