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Springtime sublimates in a stranger's eyes by Darian

Streets blooming in March, too early
for me — for I
have long hardened off, am fresh
new shifting meat
across boulevards
through alleys along canals
tactless when a stranger’s eyes
catch and hold longer
than my habitude of zero;
fight or fuck, but either
way I’m screwed — or not, I sigh,
as he rounds the corner and falls
off the edge of the pollen-stained world,
a connection missed — inter
subjectivity deferred.

I feel warm here, placed
here sensorial provocations
feigning acclimation to new surroundings
betrayed by sneezes, uncovered allergies
still, my wintered brown skin, almost sick,
resonates with the innate glow of
Lutetians, though minuscule in comparison,
here at sunset, or
sunrise — for which I am its naive witness
trekking past steel-shuttered vitrines,
catching myself only in cobbled puddles
homing my route from ecstasy places
in parks and bedrooms
on dancefloors and balconies —
for I have certainly never enjoyed such
freedom in the beatific and frightening.

Yesterday, waiting at Gaîté
where I encountered a sign in the shape of
man, who urged my consideration
of exactly five new sensations:
the bite of tooth on tongue
lips kissing forgotten fleshy corners
palpitations, doting’s creation
silent diction, fingers pleading “yes”
reveling in lovers, friends.

Arrived at Abbesses, today’s abyss
climbing spiral stepped cascades,
tired exhilaration in my mouth,
I suck on it like a gumdrop, delay gratification
sheath it under my tongue, melting
toward the expectant light, faint but real
with every lunge feeding its flame
my bones are its driftwood kindling
there there there!,
I come to, out, and under
the city, its stone heart golden, I lose
my own in the turnstile whirl and hear it
patter down the concrete cascade, still beating,
and knowingly, march on.

Lost myself in those streets,
entered four characters to retreat
the court of my longing — feline and her dame
waiting alert, sentries to my novel desire —
I remember that night
he sang me battle hymns of
separatists shooting outside his windows,
we cheered for them, because we new
separation is an intelligent response, subliminal,
to the distances we tried to breach in those
sunless hours, between bodies
human, in misty streets and rapturous balls,
who may never reconcile
the trueness of its other.