Untold Love Story
To the man I never married because I chose shame instead
Graham Coppin
Do not befriend me in college or return
smiling with sweat from rugby practice
or bring your toolbox to fix my irascible sink.
Dont greet me naked at your dorm room door
or tell me how you run with poles or eat at
my mothers table while she talks of avocados.
Do not go with me to tall mountains to see snow
or breathe in the bed next to mine at the beach house
or come and ask if the rumor of my queerness is true.
Ill flee one June night across a dark border.
Youll wander in the Zulu wild for twenty years.
Well dream in two hemispheres, our alliance of silence.
One day youll wait at the airport as I fly in from Paris.
Then Ill wheel your groceries like a Saturday wife.
Then Ill drink tea in the house where you live alone.
Youll smoke weed at the table while I talk of America
and come to my room and breathe in the bed next to me
as we try and try and fail to spin away from the world.
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