From the Fishouse

A week before the lease was finished
and I had to leave that place, iris and lilac
exhaled urgent freshness over the yard, breathing
from purple tissue so tender as to be torn
by sunlight. In the morning a moon hung
at the end of every street, testing the limit
of fullness, soon to be empty,

and in the afternoon I watched David
pull back a corner of John’s hospital gown,
to put a hand over his heart,
careful not to dislodge tubes and catheters,
at first just resting, then giving his nipple
a light, almost furtive tickle: final appeal
to the secret mercy of pleasure,
that terrible god.