The Farce of Falling in Love
with the Young Man
Cleaning the Gutters
His compact shoulders look too small at times
Like swellings on an oak tree’s bark, a bit
Too narrow. They are like the little crimes
Of leprechauns, more like an Irish skit
Than tragedy like Romeo spread out
In love, in bed, the night before his death
In love. These shoulders, they are more like pout
Than Hamlet’s anger and confusion’s breath
So prolix, prolix as male metaphors
Can make it. Still, these shoulders are as taut
As Tybalt’s sword before its toxic scores
Are taken from him by the lover’s fraught
Destruction. They are beautiful, each bulge,
Awaiting what a tongue’s kiss can divulge.