Cry Baby

Outside, the engine of his crotch rocket rumbles,

tortured by the heat of this Louisiana summer,

the only season that must truly hate me,

and he’s squinting in the shadow of an oak tree,

sun dappled and clean shaven,

white t-shirt tucked into his jeans, hiding

tattoos and piercings and rings

like secrets, like money in a sneaker, like my legs

straddling either side of his body,

one more lover picked up and locked in

on the motorcycle seat leather,

and we take off down Government Street,

past Popeyes, Calandro’s, and Doc’s Laundromat,

to the levee where the day is beginning to sink.

I don’t know how many people

he’s charmed with this heat,

this breeze, the sun, this length of river,

but sitting on the concrete

watching ships, fish, and fathers

showing their daughters how to skip rocks,

the amount I care dwindles. I feel it less and less.

He touches me, but not like that,

just his fingers over mine for a moment,

not any longer, but later,

back at my place, I’ll have him to myself.

We won’t fuck, though I want to,

but we will cry about our mothers.

Like the needles on tweezers,

we’ll dig up dirty follicles and pop zits,

groom ourselves without leaving

the surface. Inside, though, we’ll be shaking

as if we were still on his bike,

going even further into the distance,

catching the sun before it dips below the horizon,

to the place where it never rains,

and only rainbows feed the earth and trees,

where the people wake up and don’t dream,

because why would anyone have to dream

when want is as close as the lips of your lover

sipping on an ice cold daiquiri in the blue hot summer.