NINETEEN

Up for anything, pliable

nothing out of bounds

dress you up, dress you down

undress you in public

Far from home, no witnesses

this is space exploration

boundary breaking

daddy’s long arm can’t reach you here

Sidewalk swagger dissolves

to breathless whisper, begging

for release, for tongues

your mouth a light socket.

BRUNCH

This is just brunch, not sex. Not like two nights ago when nothing but a sheen of sweat separated us. We're being good boys, divided by this canyon of a table, but I can't keep my eyes off your lips that so readily met mine, explored at will. Silverware and a barricade of condiments restrain us, so even reaching to touch your hand feels like transgression. As we eat the all-day breakfast, the promise of neverending eggs, I wonder if we’ll ever meet again. We fucked too soon, my old Achilles heel tripping me up, but you insist it was a mutual lack of control. How to erase and rewind, take back the night we went too far, so that this date is full of anticipation, palpable electricity, barely touched food, our parting kiss prelude, not postscript.

NOSTALGIA

I always loved you best at a distance

voice a faint radio signal

an image lost in television snow

The idea of you

perfect and acquiescing

sculpted, blonde and grinning

Then you momentarily resurface

tangible, flabby and older

one wrong word and then another

Now you live in another time zone

always behind me

stay in the west.

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Collin Kelley is the author of the American Library Association-honored poetry collection Render (2013, Sibling Rivalry Press) and Better To Travel, which will be reissued by Poetry Atlanta Press in 2015. Sibling Rivalry Press is also the publisher of his Venus Trilogy of novels Conquering Venus, Remain In Light and the forthcoming Leaving Paris. For more information, visit www.collinkelley.com.