Poems For Your Birthday – Anthony Isaac Bradley
February 5, 2019
______________________________
Blue Poem
What is your level of need
when I bubble up to say
softly, give it to me
compared to when I work it hard
like the collar off my back
on your floor is blue?
Baby talk (coo) in one ear
while you, skin pink,
float in a mix
of body condiments:
Old Spice. Raspberry bath bomb.
You could say cock to outline
when you want it. A boy like me
has to work blue to be on your stage,
home of the quickly-bored.
Pornhub told you how
I should speak.
But I find fill my holes
odd to place on my tongue
when I’d rather just breathe
out and take you in.
I have all this clean material
but you’re applying pressure
to my throat. I will ask, harder, Daddy
until we both wake bruised.
Now have every phrase
that reminds you of your mother
though I’m not.
Time for breakfast,
baby, let me cook for you
while you call to task
every teenager killing you online.
Assholes. I love you,
honey. Fuck
my mouth again.
______________________________
Swoon
makes me think swan
only I tip
when I swoon
and I can’t see
an upright masterpiece
ever falling over
to one side,
like swimming
with the right arm
but not the left.
I don’t quite fit
as a swoon-elicitor
but I might have
gotten woozy
back in preschool
when a boy hit me
upside the head
with a dislodged
monkey bar plank, blood,
forerunner of grace,
consciously moving
to be seen.
______________________________
Out
hairpins nesting in the sidewalk cracks
this isn’t about my mother
there are just so many discarded
left here to be picked up
by a body that needs
another adjustment or fix to feel complete
after leaving home
one skinny hair tucked to the side
______________________________
Walk of Shame Down Five Stories
The boy he was with was bigger than him,
but willing to share his green
and Smokey Robinson. In the shower, before a cup
and before he could remove the sleep from his eyes.
Meetings like this his new normal,
not to get over anyone, wipe an Ex, whatever.
He was new here. No one used
to his drawl yet, each unblocked face curious
what he could provide.
Like this boy. Turns out,
not much. Maybe it was the size comparison,
or the smoke, but he couldn’t offer much beyond
arms around the waist, limp between
the cheeks. All he wanted was for his damp back
to let go of original form. Through magick or surgery,
squeezed underneath and between as a natural layer.