the roof

may be the only place you can find infinity in a city - the big dome sky, clay soft tar under bare feet, vertiginous ledge to piss over, a blimp lit from within circling Fenway like an overweight duck. i don't go up there often, but when i do it's with just one person and the time spent is as rare as the location. stars shoot, traffic below purrs like surf, moonlight quicksilver melts on the face of a boy, laughter lifts like beating wings, like a beating heart and closeness is possible and real. one night, up there, after wine and too many cheap beers, the two of us peek through splayed fingers at a fatty in his underwear bucking towards his girl in mock sex-god pantomime. he looks silly and doesn't know we're watching. we try not to be voyeurs but can't help it. we fall down on our backs giggling like girls. we can't believe what we're seeing and the party on the next-door flat, raising bottles to us, has no clue. we move about, changing position, place and view. the conversation is wild and out of range, an acid escalator to the shifting pale pink clouds overhead. things are told that until this night were secret. these are dark, embarrassed, wonderful, poetic, sexy blood brother confessions. the pipe we hold onto, like a rope on a keening ship, keeps the body from falling into the bushes below when we piss, studiously apart from one another. a golden arc splashs onto the cement, chases a cat and turns on lights that are movement activated. we hear Hispanic staccato cha cha and buzz on a nearby porch, the girls invisible and big-titted in our comic book fantasy. we lie at the edge above the street and spit. a white cotton ball floats haphazardly three stories to the sidewalk. in a laughing fit you stomp on the tar and wake the guy in the bedroom below who didn't want to be an asshole and make us shut up like a mad mom and who sends in his place a magic girl, a proxy, to tell us that although she's fine with the noise, he isn't. she hugs you and touches your face as if fireflies had landed on your cheek. she leaves with a silent Navaho drift, her skirt like soft breath, downstairs and we are alone again. we get close up here, you and i, as if proximity isn't possible in other places. statements pontificate and play, but it's ok. we know how silly and how deep we talk. time stops or flies as we ride the wave. the imagined glint of sunrise soon to flash on the curve of earth tells us it's late and it's time to go. that we are lucky for the hours we had, uninterrupted. sex has happened here and kissing, but not with you. love and sex hover like a hornets, but do not bite. we are probably thinking about it, me a lot more than you and you not with me, but the sex talk is honest, hot, revelatory and brave. it is as if we could, but can't or won't. there's been 5 nights of this. one would have been good enough, i guess, but we go for repeats. it is astonishing and ridiculous that more that once has worked. when something so wonderful happens we worry we'd mess it up with repetition, but fuck it, worry never got anyone anywhere. you say: 'language is the biggest obstacle to communication'. i say: 'my heart opens up when you're around'. 'yes' you reply, mentioning Joyce whom i can not read. maybe you will read him to me aloud some night on this roof. we thump downstairs into a dark kitchen, down a dark hallway, outside onto the sidewalk we just looked down upon. we shiver and i walk you home, off roof. we finger snap 'good-night' with exhausted smiles. the sky is more full with fading stars and a thin pale moon.

plum boy

eating another diarrhetic breakfast on a quiet Sunday i see him with his friends. he's a geek. they're all geeks at his table. geeks are hot. i think they really put out in bed, even if there's stinky fingerpaint in unwashed tighty whities. or so i imagine. but there he is. knobby El Greco fingers pulling on chin hairs, picking his nose and rubbing his neck. he has enormous teeth, too many it seems, deep water blue eyes and a big jumpy smile. i can't tell about the hair. it's combed aggressively forward. when i get up to take a caffein dump i pass by and glance at the crown. hmm, maybe he has an early spot? oh well, he's still hot, fuck it. then it begins. the looks above my book. he doesn't notice at first, but like radar (i hate the tag 'gay-dar') he sniffs something in the air, eyes catch eyes and there's a bewildering fog in his Sinatra blues. he's not sure. was Freddy Krueger in the corner actually staring at him? he steals another glance and sure enough he knows. the book dude is in fact looking directly at his face and smiling as if t say 'hey, it's cool, just looking. you're cute. i like the sound of your laugh'. he blushes but quickly returns to his gesticulating conversation with fellow geeks. uh oh, something weird. he pushes his tongue out of his mouth in a chub arc, locking the tip behind his lower front teeth. his lips open and the tongue protrudes. it's as if he's sucking on a plum. a dark crimson orb when in fact it is his own engorged member. i don't think he knows what he's doing. maybe his friends are used to it or don't notice. who cares? i can't help staring. he's sexy even with the tongue trick and his leg, his right leg, is bouncing under the table like a jack hammer, ratta-tat-tat. i think he'd have fun at my place over for a visit. he'd let me look at him for longer periods of un-embarrassed time. of course i wonder if all these at-the-moment idiosyncrasies would, after awhile, turn me off and i'd wind up hurting his feelings. build up his nascent narcissism only to tear it down. i remember years back another kid, a bad-breath yellow-toothed geek stayed the night. he wanted to. i doubt he'd done anything like that before, or would again. but somehow his awkward, skinny body fell into my bed. he might have left before dawn not wanting to be caught by room mates. i can't remember. but i would have loved to have been with the plum kid. at least i think i would. perhaps, like so many fantasies, it's best to have remained un-acted upon.