Certainties

I really loved you

and that is all you really need to know.

—Emanuel Xavier, “FYI”

We were as we so often were

getting drunk in Pete’s Tavern 

after smoking grass outside

on Irving Place me and Jory

when I went to the men’s room

and just sat on the toilet slowly

passing out until Jory burst in,

lifted, walked me to the sink,

and washed my face until

I could stand on my own and

I was sure Jory loved me.

When I told Jory I was queer

he said I’d better not try anything

and I was sure of nothing.

When we were having steak as

we so often did at Peter Luger’s

and a woman at a nearby table 

loudly accused us of being

faggots, Jory yelled back, 

And what if we are? shithead!

and I was sure I loved Jory.

When I crashed Jory’s honeymoon

in Bermuda and me and Jory 

and his wife got caught in a tropical

rainstorm and stripped naked 

to dance in the deluge, I was sure

we all loved each other.

See Saw

“I knew you were friends,” my mother said

on the last day I saw her, “but not like…

that…” That being what my aunt had told her:

“They are queer. Are you blind? Don’t you see?”

She didn’t always—even after 

cataract surgery—understand

what was in front of her. Or what she said.

She said, “I love you unconditionally,”

often, but not on that last day I saw her.