Issue 3 • Fall 2002 • Poetry

Song

Randall Mann

18th and Castro Streets --
the center of the world!
Our world. We sip our tea,
the two of us derailed...

Outside the Midnight Sun,
men smoke. And dish. Life's hard.
The tea is turning cold.
The men are getting tired.

"These queens," my friend Steve says.
"A bag of speed will buy
you almost anyone --
almost any boy.

I lure him to the house,
on-line, with crystal meth.
I say to bring his friends.
I say I'll fuck his mouth.

(One time, I swear to God,
I fucked for weeks and weeks.)
These queens arrive, all prim,
and talk about antiques

and art, you know, gay stuff.
But when they snort the best
crystal money can buy?
They beg to sit on my fist."

Randall Mann was awarded the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry. His first collection of poems, Complaint in the Garden, is forthcoming from Zoo Press in the spring of 2004. He has individual poems forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, and Salmagundi. He lives in San Francisco.

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