poems by rj gibson

Sub Rosa


Something sexy there

in those sounds,

the necessary depth

of Sub, the uh of it.  Hiss

to uh, to buh.  Begin with

the fricative, the rub

against, the slip, like sliding

between the sheets, moving into,

walking in a wind.  End

with that plosive, the baby boom,

the dumbed climax.  The r’s

brief traction, short ground before

that rise with rosa,

the way it holds

a bloom within,

ends in appreciation.

--

Fetish:  a Lovesong

I would grab you

at the haunches, pull

you to my face:  I would

wear you out

in public as a mask. 

I would sing

into the dark heat of you:

of your name &  of your taste

until:  my voice rang  out

your mouth.  

I would be in you

as long as we could

both bear.   Every hour

I would open you,

would insinuate

further.  Thin as you are

I would have you

thinner:  like paper: 

 

I would fold you in half:

then half again.  I would

carry you: 

little slip, little token,

another thing needing seen to.

Ride inside my pocket

with my lighters, my change, my keys.

RJ Gibson holds an MFA in Poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He is the author of the chapbooks Scavenge (co-winner of the 2009 Robin Becker Prize) and You Could Learn a Lot, both from Seven Kitchens Press. His writing has appeared in Court Green, Columbia Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, the Cortland Review,LambdaLiterary.org, and in the anthologies My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality, and Writing Into the Forbidden: On Cultivating the Courage to Speak. He was a semifinalist for the 2013 Discovery/Boston Review Prize. Currently he is a Lecturer at West Virginia Wesleyan College.