The oranges made a gorgeous, swollen pile.
—Fiona McFarlane, The Night Guest
10:15 on a Saturday night: my
housemate’s asleep, Tiger Coils roil an air
wet as whelps (a bitch yelps), Mulder’s chest hair
exposes itself like clockwork. Grindr
trills Bud what ya into Familiar thrill.
in general? in bed? Whatevs HAHA
proving his youth. I thumb Olds’ ‘Bruise Ghazal’.
write, edit, cook, swim, dance; vers Goosepimples:
You sound SO fucking GAY Which is nearly
a rehash of the torment of high school:
orange, swollen fags (not jocks, gorgeous, cool)
bashing brainy fags. It’s immense, the fear
of gay men. The rage it creates. The sorrow.
To crash tonight’s to burn tomorrow.
© Stuart Barnes
First published in Rabbit Poetry Journal, 2014
Poet’s note: “Written while watching The X-Files, this poem is about alienation—geographic, domestic and social.”
Photo by © Stuart Barnes
Poem and Dish 
‘Written while watching The X-Files’ … while sitting in the kitchen sink? 😉 One of my favourite Cure songs, that. I’m ‘into’ this poem too, the way it collages candid with (pithy) commentary … if that’s the right word. And the double meaning of ‘the fear of gay men’ really reverberates back through the whole poem, and beyond.