Filling Up At the Same Boones Mill Shell Station Twenty Years Later

No, he was actually quite easy to understand.

He wanted that calm surety

that was welcome

and welcome home—

professional, punctual

about dates and anniversaries—

roses on the table,

dinner by candlelight…

the only place

where desire was allowed to burn.

It was short sleeve Nautica polos,

and Foakleys at the barbecue—

tasteful silver necklaces that hinted too subtly

at a softness in the manhood—

handshakes and suits for the business end of things—

respectability politics repackaged as romance.

Defiant, sure, but also too timid

to make it everyone else's problem...

Old before we were young.

I guess somewhere I was supposed to smile gratefully and speak highly

and revel in the sweet-sad

post-traumatic post-modernism

and expect this fizzle to be fire—

never outshine,

even when my own mirror gleamed too bright…

Sex is only angry when there's something to be angry about.

When it ended, I spoke about

opalescent ruins and columns crumbling—

but really, it was blown-away ashes

from an inferno—

the vulpine plume of animal heat,

like shockwaves from a supernova

that he had wanted to study, but never ventured to,

because outer space is always too frigid.

And just like the stars we used to watch

before the light pollution of the last rebellions of my youth

and the insidious xenon of headlights drowned them both out—

Well, I'll give him this:

He understood forever,

and he knew that things

(had they been different,

had I been different)

could last.