The Busboy at Busters
Trebor Healey
Everything about him is long
The indian nose,
the long sling of his chin
cradling the infant soul
He's got spider legs
and monkey's arms
and something constant
and stable as stone
in his eyes
of long ago
brown
Long are his lips
twin bridges
cataracts of teeth
the living river inside him
I'm all wet with it
To be with him
would be to be in mountains
a long way away
To travel the river
bending and turning
back
through the steeping stones
where everything changes
to waterfalls
and great swaths
of dizzying flashing brightness
of snow
to the precipitation of him:
Great tears,
beyond emotional correlations
a rain of sparks
from those same eyes
Are they brown and stone
of planets?
Is he the whole universe after all?
I am inside him then
forever
and he in me
Some young man
I've never touched
but seen
and seen beyond
and long back behind
all these pictures
kaleidoscoping this coffee,
this red brick shop, these cars, sycamore trees, voices,
suns and moons in infinitude, mirrors facing mirrors and the long roads born of them
And so to sleep naked in his arms
would be as if to gather all the light of the sun
spread all over and bouncing about
It would be to record the memories
of all the stars
That's how improbable
the consummation of this love
How comic
when I've found--
traveling as I've done
the towering pine-treed forests within him
the length of their shadows
echoing his eyelashes
and the ever-changing horizon
mimicked by his mouth--
that we are one inside the other
forever
and inseparable
as the brown is within his eyes
as water and stone
The universe is love made
and making
so why do I lust for him
as if we don't share that already?
There is no need for introductions then
I set him free
for we are in love regardless
of what we may either believe
and all my longing draws
a big circle
like a comet orbiting
I'd love to see him again sometime too
in a hundred years or a million
or tomorrow even
For now,
I sing--
for him and for me
and for all who see what I see
--this song
Trebor Healey is a gifted poet. He recently received The Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction for his novel Through It Came Bright Colors. In addition to being a regular contributor to Ashé, his work has appeared in Velvet Mafia, Blithe House Review, Lodestar Quarterly and numerous anthologies including Queer Dharma, Law of Desire, Best Gay Erotica 2004, Bend Don't Shatter among others.
Website: www.treborhealey.com