When I was a boy with braces and only nine astonished hairs sprouted from my pink nipples I wrestled in a bed swirling with sweaty sheets an angel an incubus a seraph a fiend. I pounded my palms against its pectoral planes. Slid my hand between its corded thighs seeking something hard as I was- heat and hunger dripped in my pits and slicked my fingers. Drunk with damnation, breathless from my own locker room tang, my eyes rolled up a downward tug, twist of muscles- Christ on the cross, boys bending, the baseball star washing his car. I chewed the pillowcase dry with no release... Today I look at boys and men-- hairy sheen, shanks and angles, swinging joints and cleft surfaces-- the same way I look at cardinals darting, gold finches flickering, weeping willows and stoic oaks. In the same way I look at eggplants, onions, peppers and leeks piled high in a hand-hewn bowl. The craving has uncoiled from my crotch, less hot soaked my skin, settled in my marrow, filled my teeth. I encounter in each body hints of the blessing for which I was wrestling ridges and furrows on the face of God. -Mark J. Royse June 2, 2000
