back to back, it’s
a sort of duel, this,
only at High Noon,
refusing to pull apart.
The arms are laced.

The shoulders are red sands
of matador energy
against an equally bloody heat.

Here, striations
of the bull-ring scene are ivy
and upon that wrestling flesh,
Christmas lights dangle from the leaves.

Over rippling torsos
they gentle like lightning bugs
any straining muscle.

What lock keeps
this enjoined heart captive
by the pumping, bumping chambers
of hips, legs, buttocks?

It is all the hypersensitive
self-consciousness & suicide callings
of youth vs. the scrapbooks of the spirit
age makes albums of:
time capsules of photos
in the mind’s flickering eye.

Listen, if there is a war
to that passion then let it turn
sky blue as letter paper,
turquoise clear
as the gaze of a Siamese.

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Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer.  Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online.  He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/