Poetry
by Scott Wiggerman
Skin
Then there's a lover's skin,
the tentative touch of fingers on flesh
like a bomb squad approaching
a mysterious package,
a combination of caution and commotion
ready to explode at your fingertips.
There's the rush to unearth his geography,
contour the soft plains and rough terrains,
rolling muscles and nervous valleys;
explore his equators, map his jungles,
detect and record his imperfections-
the twin joys of uncovering and discovering.
And there's the tingle that comes,
the shiver of goose bumps
charged as electric particles
stimulated by your own reactor,
flesh alert as a watchdog,
ready to growl or yowl
like the moon tickling the horizon.
Letter to My Father-in-Law
I rode your son real hard last night,
broke him like a wild stallion,
head pulled back, nostrils wide as moons,
feral cries piercing midnight's marrow.
Both of us panting at breakneck speed,
the rank sweat of man transformed to beast,
effusive as a newly drilled oil well.
You must know about cowboys and oil.
I believe it will happen someday, even in Texas,
the day when marriage between men is legal.
I will spare you the embarrassment of attending.
You won't be invited, won't have to worry
about witnessing our kiss before God's good altar.
You will be as welcome at my wedding as I was at yours.
Think of it, old man, as my gift to you.
I thought that once you met me I would become
something more than the Yankee faggot
that you think led your son astray.
True, I didn't wear boots or a five-inch buckle,
but I left the boa and eye-liner at home.
I walked and talked as straight as a ruler,
though I may as well have bent over.
I'm reconciled to the fact that you'll be dead
before I ever set foot on your farm.
I should like to see the house your son grew up in,
the acres he worked, the home he escaped.
But the biggest draw will be standing on the land
that I'd been banned from, knowing that you
will be in your grave, writhing without a shotgun,
when your son and I get down in your dirt.
A Matter of Size
This hotel bed is a sea,
a wide swath of quiet
where we float
like distant islands,
almost out of sight.
Waves of white
billow between us;
your breathing
barely reaches my shore.
I long to return home
where we surge,
touch and tumble,
in the brine
of our own small bed.
Scott Wiggerman is the editor of the "di-verse-city" series of poetry anthologies for the Austin International Poetry Festival and co-editor of Dos Gatos Press, publisher of the Texas Poetry Calendar. The author of Vegetables and Other Relationships, his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Bay Windows, Gertrude, Midwest Poetry Review, Spillway, Paterson Literary Review, Will Work for Peace, Southern Breezes, The Cancer Poetry Project, A Christmas Collection, Affirming Flame, The Fairest of Them All, and This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians 2.
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