jeffrey bryant
Packing/Unpacking
Mother packed clothes for summer family trips,
laying out the gendered for me so tenderly.
I was all faceless, trapped within lines,
costumed in this boyhood.
I met myself in mirrors,
in lipstick confessions draped in her silks,
doors locked, listening for footsteps,
seeing myself in this silence, and
my need that mother never know
the barcode of my sexuality,
its straight lines deceiving me.
As a teenager
I wrapped her bloodied winter breast,
disease devoured, screaming for escape.
I sought solace on another boy’s tongue,
quietly, after school, in my room,
next to her room,
trying to be what she needed,
listening to her end days,
trying to get what I needed,
at the headwater of a river gender fluid.
I unpacked her death,
cupping handfuls of weeping light deep
in the crevasse of my grief,
grieving myself to sleep,
waiting for any dream
where I finally get to tell her who I am.
laying out the gendered for me so tenderly.
I was all faceless, trapped within lines,
costumed in this boyhood.
I met myself in mirrors,
in lipstick confessions draped in her silks,
doors locked, listening for footsteps,
seeing myself in this silence, and
my need that mother never know
the barcode of my sexuality,
its straight lines deceiving me.
As a teenager
I wrapped her bloodied winter breast,
disease devoured, screaming for escape.
I sought solace on another boy’s tongue,
quietly, after school, in my room,
next to her room,
trying to be what she needed,
listening to her end days,
trying to get what I needed,
at the headwater of a river gender fluid.
I unpacked her death,
cupping handfuls of weeping light deep
in the crevasse of my grief,
grieving myself to sleep,
waiting for any dream
where I finally get to tell her who I am.
another broken heel story
Tell me another broken heel story
The cigarette you stamped out
The kissing schnapps you bought
The smell of men crawling leathered
This ache you had for my hand to
Open your cage, watch you emerge,
Tame you as the lion watches
Eating your first five fantasies like
The feral pawed prowler he is.
Tell me where things go in darkness
How much of you fits without prayer
When you release and what you see
Tell me when to go and how far
Scream what this means quietly
While I light another nicotine dream
And look at the city breathing hot piss
Tell me to stay and then how long
Fall asleep reading Rimbaud to me,
Like poor poets do when food is
Missing and all that's left is you, full
And ready to fill me up.
The cigarette you stamped out
The kissing schnapps you bought
The smell of men crawling leathered
This ache you had for my hand to
Open your cage, watch you emerge,
Tame you as the lion watches
Eating your first five fantasies like
The feral pawed prowler he is.
Tell me where things go in darkness
How much of you fits without prayer
When you release and what you see
Tell me when to go and how far
Scream what this means quietly
While I light another nicotine dream
And look at the city breathing hot piss
Tell me to stay and then how long
Fall asleep reading Rimbaud to me,
Like poor poets do when food is
Missing and all that's left is you, full
And ready to fill me up.
Jeffrey Bryant is a Pushcart-nominated queer poet from Los Angeles. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Poetic Diversity, New Verse News, Poetrysuperhighway.com, Synkroniciti, Quill and Echo, Journal of the Plague Years, Coiled Serpent, Altadena Literary Review, Shadowplay Literary Journal and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts. You can find him on Instagram @jeffreybryant88.
