Testimony From the Boys

by Anthony Aguero

Cavafy is needy. I lay there for hours

     with him at the beginning

and at the end — smell the ashes.

         That’s Rome burning he says.

I cover the politics of love,

    of romanticism, and clutch his neck

as he asks. There’s hunger

      and there’s the ravaging: the two

never rest. I sleep on his chest.

       I sleep in the burning buildings.

I hear his footsteps and lie longer.

          Here is the memory and his hands

— kill them both. He needs me.

     Here is the drying journey

so far from Greece, in America.

         He says You look beautiful

beheaded. I’m losing my mind.

      He’s out for blood. I’m arriving,

There’s the rope, here’s the vine

       — escape before he stirs awake.

Anthony Aguero is a queer writer in Los Angeles, CA. His work has appeared, or will appear, in the Carve Magazine, Rhino Poetry, Cathexis Northwest Press, 14 Poems, Redivider Journal, Maudlin House, and others.

Poetry, Spilled InkHooligan MagazineDecember 17, 2021Anthony Aguero