SELECTED POEMS AND READINGS

Bryan closes the Arkansas Literary Festival’s
Pub or Perish event in April of 2011:

Bryan delivers the Keynote Address at AQLF:

AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO GAY MARRIAGE
from Assaracus 03 and My Life as Adam 

Monday he wakes me after he showers
with a hand on my stomach. He smells
like soap and coffee. Tuesday he cuts
the grass. I meet him at the door with water,
towel the sweat from his forehead.
On Wednesday we sit on the sofa,
my feet on his lap. We watch too many
hours of reality television, then go
to bed early. On Thursday, I show him
again the easiest way to chop an onion.
I make chicken soup, he cleans the dishes.
We fold laundry and play with our cats.
On Friday, we meet after work
for dinner. It is date night; we talk
about the week and plan our grocery list.
Saturday morning we sleep late. I indulge
myself in his warmth, feel protected
in his orbit. Then it is Sunday,
more chores around the house,
our schedules built to end the day
with Desperate Housewives and a plate
full of food, the same as every
other house on the block.

SONS OF ABRAHAM
from  My Life as Adam 

My grief grows with the years. I count
seventeen Octobers come and gone,

imagine a green-eyed boy
with hair the color of straw,

wooden walls sturdy on branches
long since chopped and used

for firewood.  The older I get,
the more aches and pains: a nephew

and a treehouse, these things
my brother would have made.

THE BOOK OF DAVID
from  My Life as Adam 

He’s divorced and remarried now, 
blue collared factory slave
in Mississippi somewhere, shackled 
to the second shift, daily
repetitive movements undoing history,
heat and grease replacing the smell
of freedom at sixteen,
of my bedroom in November, my parents off
chasing Rolling Stones.

He corrected me when I sang “bright red” instead
of “flat bed” Ford in “Take It Easy,”
said to treat it like a popsicle then
let me lay my head on his stomach

(most straight boys don’t).

So many men but he was the only one who
took the time to teach me. 

I’d watch him communicate patiently with
his deaf younger brother, his rough hands
transformed through sign language,
a gentle education
on the complexities of the world.
These are my last memories of him.

I picture him now guiding the new guys on
how to operate the machines.

I picture them listening.

AQUA HANKY, RIGHT POCKET (AQUAPHILIA)
from THE HANKY CODE (forthcoming) 

I almost drowned in the Colorado River
when I was thirteen. I’d gone to summer camp

with my neighbor Randy because I 
wanted to kiss him. I’d gone rafting

to impress him. I was terrified. 
I could barely swim.  

We lost control and I flipped backwards
and fell into the rapids. 

I breathed the water. I swallowed the river.
I swallowed the merboys that leapt through the current. 

I fought until time became a sea monster.
I fought until Poseidon swept me into his arms.

When I awoke, I was on the bank, my legs
still submerged, my back flat against the sand.

Randy was over me.  Randy was kissing me. 
Randy was crying.  Randy was touching me.

When I coughed, Randy smiled.
Randy hugged me.  

I think of him every time I kiss a man
in the Colorado River. 

INTRODUCING A GRANDSON TO HIS GRANDFATHER
from Less Fortunate Pirates:
Poems from the First Year Without My Father
(forthcoming) 

You will know him through your own
sense of humor, the practical jokes
of heredity that make your eyes water
to the detriment of friends.

You will know him through acts
of kindness, the anchor of heart
that compels you to share your treasure
with less fortunate pirates.

You will know him, little Noah,
when a cat stakes her purring claim
against your leg, when you walk
the first of many dogs on winter nights.

You will know him in your name,
in your knees, in your near
tone-deaf ears that hear melodies
beautiful in the absence of pitch.

Bryan and Loria Taylor demonstrate professionalism: