by Grant Chemidlin
Little Quaint House
outside, but stepping in, the walls were adorned
with naked men. Stretched, voluptuous, leather-bound
& gagged, tasteful, but for my still-
closeted eyes—the silver glint of the sharpest needle.
I looked both ways before crossing
the hall—past the marble ass, Tom of Finland quiet
on the table. It was like finding
a library buried in sand, contraband of a bunker,
the kind of bachelor’s pad I’d never even thought
to dream of.
He was the only out man I knew,
so I invited myself over.
We drank gin, kissed
on the couch, my first time feeling the coarse ground
of a man’s face against my own.
The friction. The heat
of his unbuttoning, of him leading me up the spiral stairs
to the bedroom.
Both bare, I saw our cocks
were nearly identical—in size, in straightness, only his had aged
twenty years. The image
scared me. I became suddenly aware
of something cavernous, a sadness
that tinged the room, pooled among shadows, the faces
of the men trapped in black frames.
I was young, so did that awful thing—
we came, at the same time, then I
left him. Drove home, back
to what, for me, was just
beginning.
Poet Grant Chemidlin is the author of What We Lost in the Swamp (Central Avenue Publishing, 2023), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Recent work has appeared in Palette Poetry, The Los Angeles Review, Quarterly West, and Atlanta Review, among others. Find out more at grantchemidlin.com.
Artist Shae Meyer was born in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder CO. After moving to New York City he began working in studios producing large scale paintings for artists there, while developing his own processes. He now resides in Troy, NY where he paints, and grows plants.
Gulf Stream Magazine 