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Male Nipples
by Brenda Hillman
— not utter, not
useless, the uselessness of desire, the slight
depression around the center
•
— When the motorcycle boy would light
His cigarette, I longed
For the flat nipples, the scars, the contralto 'when'
•
and after you saw that the flower
of hell is not hell,
but a flower —
•
How the beautiful boys' nipples in the pool
In Arizona looked
"underwatery" — pennies which have been thrown in
•
— and after you saw
that the flower of hell
was not one bit hell, but a flower —
•
convince him to take only
his shirt off. They were, well, one
was brown and one was like the inside of a story —
•
— the ones of divers,
how they point down under the wetsuits:
•
when I first put
my tongue on his (having decided
he is not my mother) —
•
Oh, the bodies I loved were very tired.
I liked their skin. And
I was not sad animal no graveyard —
•
And after you saw that desire
is hell, that the flower of hell
is not hell but a flower, well,
•
— So I told the little hairs
around his nipple: lie flat! and they did,
like a campfire, without the stories —
•
those of soldiers in the desert war and often
his left one tastes metallic as in
childhood, when I licked my brother's BB gun
•
Kept not finishing
people I loved.
I tried, — but.
•
The top lip of a Corona beer
is about the size
of one of his —
•
And after you saw that the flower
of hell is desire, the almost, well,
you still had desire —
•
— So the moon came up
pink tonight
like one of what had been missed
"Male Nipples" reprinted from Loose Sugar,
© 1999, Wesleyan University Press.
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