qarrtsiluni

by Louie Crew

My lover’s buns are nothing like a God’s.
Plate glass is far more rippled than his chest.
His six-inch fuse becomes his only rod.
With no cologne but rankest funk he’s blessed.

I have seen glistening men, hirsute or smooth,
but no alluring luster’s in his face.
And I’ve known even yokels less uncouth
clutching their men in graceless long embrace.

I like to hear my lover’s tuneful shower,
but any glories there are merely myths,
for though his songs indeed my spunk empower,
the truth is that he all too often lithps.

And yet I swear my man’s to me more real
than hunky clones who, unrehearsed, can’t feel.

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Louie Crew (website) is an Alabama native and an emeritus professor at Rutgers. He lives in East Orange, New Jersey, with Ernest Clay, his husband of 37 years. To date, editors have published 2,157 of Crew’s poems and essays. He has written four poetry volumes: Sunspots, Midnight Lessons, Lutibelle’s Pew and Queers! for Christ’s Sake! Crew wrote the first openly gay materials ever published in Change Magazine, Christianity & Crisis, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Churchman, Fellowship Magazine, The Living Church, Metanoia, and Southern Exposure. He has been editor of special LGBTQ issues of College English and Margins. He serves on the editorial board of Journal of Homosexuality. For more about him, see the Wikipedia.