Caravaggist
He loved you this way, briefly
and always. Remember posing
perfectly, remember the glint
of armor: only a prop. Remember
the mirror shard
on the wall, remember kneeling,
the artist in front of you, his
finger and thumb pressing
your bottom lip, pulling it
down. To be a man's lover
is to be allowed to touch his
wound, widening. Outside,
dusk. Remember Rome,
your white shirt fallen
from your shoulder,
the door that led to his studio,
that house party in the hills
where at night they dressed
up all the boys as girls.
He loved you this way, briefly
and always. Remember posing
perfectly, remember the glint
of armor: only a prop. Remember
the mirror shard
on the wall, remember kneeling,
the artist in front of you, his
finger and thumb pressing
your bottom lip, pulling it
down. To be a man's lover
is to be allowed to touch his
wound, widening. Outside,
dusk. Remember Rome,
your white shirt fallen
from your shoulder,
the door that led to his studio,
that house party in the hills
where at night they dressed
up all the boys as girls.
Nathan Blansett's poems appear in The Journal, Mead, and The Adroit Journal. He has received scholarships to the West Chester University Poetry Conference, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and lives in Atlanta, where he studies at Emory University.