Facebook Intervention

It had been three weeks
since you said you might be gay
and I confronted you
with a clever intervention to leave no doubt.
Look, I said, scrolling
down your friends on your facebook page. So
many women, with the butch
haircuts, severe smiles, so
many men who worked
in the theater with you
and your feed: how many
pictures from the
parade do you need to
forget the word “maybe”?
I was thinking this would
be like that movie In & Out with
Kevin Klein when all his friends,
his students, his family
point out to him his
his love of Streisand and his ability
to accessorize and decorate.
But it wasn’t.
You sat with the body language
of one always impatient to leave,
and I couldn’t conjure Joan Cusack’s
Wistful, fatalistic half-smile
no matter how hard I tried.
I was merely the one who unknowingly
shared closet space with you for decades
about to be tossed like defective Samsonite.
And you were anyone but Kevin Klein about to burst out
the perfect showtune.

 

Productions

I thought she was my friend, too,
those years
I went backstage at the theater
where you worked with her,
to high five and embrace her, to praise
yet another successful show.
Those summers we
visited her place in Harwich
I woke early to take
our crying infant son
for long drives; and when I got back
waited as you finished
your long walks with her.
Twenty years later, on Cape Cod,
screeches of squawking, morning gulls
have replaced the audio
our now grown son’s tantrums.
you and she still walk on that
long stretch of spongy, dark sand, openly intimate now,
talking theater, drama,
upcoming shows, surprise
third acts as the sparkling bay catches fire.

 

Taffy

It was soon to be
our twenty-sixth anniversary
and I suggested we go
to Rockport for the day,
the way we’d done before,
that long walk on the rock jetty
where the wind picks up
with each step and loose shirts
billow like sails; that sweets store
with the taffy stretcher
you can watch from a window
rotating like
a miniature amusement park ride.
You sat in bed, exasperated, palms flat on the mattress
“Haven’t I been clear?” You asked,
but it wasn’t a question “How
unhappy I’ve been?”
I didn’t know how to answer. If I
said no, I would be
chastised for my
denial; if yes, it would only be worse.
Instead, I looked at you, and
thought of that machine,
the two bars turning beside
each other, one over, one
under the taffy, red, blue,
green, and the delectable
pieces, each wrapped in wax paper,
put in a white cardboard
box wrapped in a frilled ribbon.

 

The Meeting

It’s Monday night and the monthly meeting
of the New England chapter
of the “Straight Spouse Network.”
We slide the tray of brownies
around the lacquered table
as we share or pass, depending.
We are bound by rules.
We are not here to bash
but to acknowledge common experience,
common for us, anyway.
The woman with long black hair
and rock and roll T shirt
says she found out
when she moved a box
from the linen closet’s top
shelf and out
from behind it tumbled
her husband’s assortment
of dildoes in various
hefts, length, materials, colors,
and textures, fell
on her head like something you’d see
in some extended moment
of a situation comedy as the
music swells and highlights the star’s reaction
as the camera zooms
on her befuddled, humiliated face.
And we all understand.

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  • Myles Gordon is a writer and teacher living near Boston, Massachusetts (USA). He has published one full length collection (Inside the Splintered Wood, Tebot Bach Press), and three chapbooks.

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