Always the boys who stick the Black
Cat firecracker into the cat’s anus
________________or the cat into the mailbox to bang
________________with Louisville Sluggers. The boys
who stalk and lie low to spring, pop
a tight ass, who fist our soft spots,
________________puppy pinch our necks, who make
________________us kneel and choke on make-believe
cocks for the gawkers (for every boy
a gawker). And the different boy turns
________________out not so different. He waits between
________________our bus stops and homes, acid-washed
jean jacket magic markered with rape
cartoons, stiff hairdo basically a mace,
________________fuming dad’s Old Spice. He bear hugs
________________and whispers Take it (like a boy), tosses
up a blade that will never fall back
straight, but we flinch since the boy
________________thinks all or nothing the zero sum
________________of penetration. Burrow for the root
of bro, of prep, of hood, of the Silicon
boy, CEO, the close mentor whose pen
________________edits our stories, multiply the categories
________________of boy who grows up to zip up genitalia
taunts like needle prick and meat
wallet into rich cologne woos
________________that gag a room. O boys, we squat
________________beneath your porches. We find ways
to hack your guarded foundations
and let our sharp insurgencies of air
________________hex you. We curate the wounded
________________art of memory. We retool your fetishes
to resurrect your names: briar-crusted
gym sock, hooks, worms in inverted
________________Indians and Pirates caps, your boxers
________________stuffed with burrs, sewn up, spiked
on Buck knives. Dead tadpoles in beer
bottles filled with tobacco spit. We drop
________________a throwing star into a pan of curdled milk
________________mixed with beard shavings, dollar bills,
the toilet paper you spurt into, shit-caked
fur from your bewared-of mutt. We bake
________________this into poisonous yogurt, monocultural
________________entrée with side of spaghetti tape jerked
from a cassette called Girls, Girls, Girls.
We place this offering before the picture
________________of you we glued to a raft of wadcutter
________________bullets. Your image will sink in the lake
where you shot frogs. We can type you
too, boys. Your lots become the grounds
________________for séances. Our circles amass your silver,
________________your gold watches, all of them out of time.