He’d improvise on his harmonium
in the low light of his room. While he played,
I’d watch his skinny, naked back, struck dumb
by mystery, by heady wrack—flayed
by sacred longing. We weren’t lovers,
but on condition that we both pretend
that the rude wilderness of his covers
showed the reign of daily life it’s end,
still he’d sometimes hold me, and I’d swoon
at the romance of us: two teenaged boys
whose fraternal ardor could change it’s tune
in tender ears to cataclysmic noise,
tear our skinny, boyish hearts asunder,
and sift the shards for the precious plunder