MONTREAL

It was the day M and I
Went to the basilica
The Notre Dame
Of Old Montreal
I was taking pictures
Of men I didn’t know
Posed like statues
In the hallway
I had not yet come
To understand my love for men
Was masculine in nature
Homosexual poet
Byronic cock, suicide
In a gray sea
But I am getting ahead
Of myself. We entered
The holiest room
Under firm instructions
To take no photos
Which we immediately
Ignored. Gold
And wood and brass
French and Latin
White linen, equidistant
Cherubs, hundreds
Of candles alight
For the dead
When we got back to the hotel
I smoked cigarette after cigarette
On the balcony. M
wanted to fuck me
But I was afraid
Of the pussy of a woman
And she laughed and said
It’s like you’re a gay
Man, scared of pussy
For lunch we ate mussels
In wine. On the street
Outside the restaurant
I met a homosexual Brit
And fantasized about
Sleeping with him
Like a man then
Immediately discarded
That line of thinking
I soothed myself
By picturing my body
Dressed in gauzy lingerie
And thoughts
Of how womanly
I was. From here
We visited the garden
And observed the sexual
blossoms surrounding
The pond, striations
Of leaves, tropical
Flowers in the greenhouse
Emerging from black water
And seafoam green tile. M
Wanted to get drunk
So we did. She slurred
Nature’s so femme,
Like Venus and the sea
Every plant I photographed
Had a phallus shaped bloom
I remembered Robert Gluck
Saying I want to be a woman
And a man penetrating him
My mind hemorrhaged
Images I was unready
To interpret. I felt
Insane and evil
A failed woman
M touched my shoulder
And said Hey. Be on earth
With me. We were going
To leave and get
Even more drunk
In the hotel pool
The sun began its descent
I watched the shifting light
From the Saint-Laurent Boulevard
Toward somewhere far away

PERE LACHAISE

Alone
No German to fuck me
Brutal in Paris. Fur coat
Which I have just obtained
For sixty Euros
This seems to me
An excellent deal. Garbage
Tucked behind rusted
Wrought gates
Yellow carnations
Moss on stone
Sun falling in sheets
On the stone
A funeral procession
At the crematorium
On the top of the hill
No one is weeping
I forget to visit
Oscar Wilde’s grave
That flaming queer