Cock

Porch Pussy they hoot
into the night air,
my neighbors,
their words muscling up
against the quiet
of my porch-reading,
groping at me with
hot breath.
These boys whose cars strut
broad-chested up their driveway,
basses thumping like fist on flesh,
like cock beating out its presence
between quiet thighs,
who stare at me
with hard eyes appraising, dumbing
dirty fingers of sight over my skin.
Boys I’ve grown fond of despite this,
because of moments between
all this cock and strut:
the intimate sound
of their knocks against
each others’ windows instead of doors,
like secret codes struck on
tree house walls.
The way I’ve seen one move quietly
through his kitchen, leaning on tiptoe
towards top shelves of cupboards carefully
lined with paper, placing clean cups
mouth-down like his mother surely taught him.
The way I’ve seen him slouched in his driveway,
frantic, pleading with some girl on the phone
to listen, just listen, please just listen.*
I think of them, their baggy pants,
their fuck yous and sideglance spits,
asleep in beds, beneath soft cotton sheets
curled uncertainly like commas around their ankles,
mouths open against pillows,
faces slack and silenced,
the way the one surely burrows into sleep
as though five-years old again,
remembering the way his mother
would smooth her fingers
along his sleepy neck.
In my head I cock
a gun against his temple
just to hear my voice,
just to make him
whimper in his sleep.


--Written by Your Humble Narrator

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