Awakened

i. The First View

I watch them all
parade the splash of summer,
although the August sun
dropped just last week
into the lap of September.
The feeble ember
of that memorable month
is the paling blush beneath their shirts.
As murmurs plunge into necklines,
pushing inward, all talk, all teeth,
that man, there in the corner
is the hub containing chaos
yet placing it in order.
He is dressed in the color of my thoughts.
A bright fallen leaf
among the summer pruning.
And I the tree to hold him once again.

ii. The First Approach

Promises have propagated doubt
in all of us.
Trees which once sheltered,
lose their leaves.
Even the mighty oak, braggart of us all,
looks embarrassed in old age
when bare.
No, I wasn't asking your age.
We are still young enough
to splash about in color.
Busy Friday?
We can kick through some leaves.

iii. After Many Days

You remember my name.
You even remember my sister's name.
Perhaps you need some room.
Y'know a military man
called me by my last name
when he had me in the barracks.
That signaled the beginning was an end
in more ways than one.
I guess I'm scared you live so close by.
With winter coming on,
this could become a habit.
Don't ever say I love you.
I've mounted many storms,
but I've yet to know an earthquake.

iv. Always His Reply

Shhhhhhhh.....
like wind licking the backs of leaves.
Please close your eyes.
Now dream of spring.

Unnamed

Feigning sleep, burying my face
in the pillow, my mouth white
against its foam. Burrowing
like a goldfish with its head
beneath a leaf, with the raccoon paw
in for the strike.
Stuck plentiful times,
with not even a whimper
from the obedient child
as my grandfather's fat fingers,
slippery with Vaseline, prod open
the lips of my buttocks,
prepping the slam.
This isn't asthma,
Mama.

Greenhouse Assistant

This time
you were a microbiologist.
I'd love to feel those thighs
wrapped around my waist,
you said.
I was watering the flowers.
I turned toward the philodendron
as you took an awkward step back.
You were so hungry
you didn't even notice
I had splashed your tie.
A thin leaf of a tongue
moistened your lip
as you pressed the crotch
of a three hundred dollar suit
against the table
upsetting the ferns.
With pointed shears,
I snipped back the bonsai,
pushed past the potting soil,
and grabbed your wrist
when you peeled a wet leaf
from my butt.
My liberation is not for you.
Your marriage is the bait
you dangle at the rest stop,
as if you remain a heterosexual
in a gay man's bed.
Oh, I've heard lists
of the ages of children,
and listen closely:
I've been the destination
of your Daddy's business trip.

Richard Ballon lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has had poetry appear in The Haight Ashbury Review, Social Anarchism, Lilliput Review, the Saint Anthony Messenger, Oinionhead, Changing Men and Anything that Moves.

Email: Richard Ballon

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