I Could Live Forever in This Drift
cento after David Wojnarowicz
see the quiet outline easing into the distance
teeth of red factories, small sparks of airplanes
flooded gutters in that late blue and yellow
splashes of red and green neon
sliding across the wet pavements
luminous white ships plowed through
the waters of the river
orange interior walls illuminated by the metallic
blue of a video monitor
an overly sensitive microphone
split rail fencing preventing us from crawling
soon all this will be picturesque ruins
motorcycle continuing the downward arc
then the still camera: portraits of his amazing feet,
his head, that one open eye
some passive self into a lifetime
of psychic control causes my breathing
to resume, and the dream shifts
the room is filled with AIDS
then slides into a view of darkness
dismissal is policy in America
I see myself seeing death
I scratch my head at the hysteria
the whole world is still turning, and somewhere it’s raining
all I can feel is the pressure and the need to release
the huge ticking mass of it
time is now compressed
maybe it’s what we call sadness
maybe it’s darker than that
ten pounds of pressure ten pounds of rage
He Says He Wants to Split Me
all day I’ve longed
to see a tree
and there are none
concrete columns
jut out past
the transom
of a building’s ego
in the fossilization
of memory and construction
the city lost its money
obvious where one
style ends
looking at the grid
my complacency
governed by doom
I meet this stranger
he wants to throw
my body around
a decorated room
I want softness
the bright touch
of a leaf’s lapping edge
in the end
there are no feelings
he just keeps telling
me what to do
despite how well
I behave
after this
I won’t
recognize my life
nothing
not even worship
will fulfill him
Dare Williams is a Queer HIV-positive poet and literary worker rooted in Southern California. A 2019 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, he has received support/fellowships for his work from John Ashbury Home School, The Frost Place, Brooklyn Poets, Breadloaf, Tin House, and Vermont Studio Center. His work has been featured in Foglifter, Frontier, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He is an associate poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine and an MFA student at Warren Wilson College. To learn more about Dare’s writing, visit Darewilliams.com