a poem by michael broder

You see, the thing is,

I’ve been in love before,
but never like this,
the way I lie, arm around him,
dark outside, can’t sleep,
thinking of mother in a hospital bed,
lying awake while dawn comes,
yellow, gray, and slightly stale,
the hundred and eighty
degrees I turn, the away I face,
clock I check as he rolls over,
fast asleep, and catches me.

Michael Broder is the author of This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Assaracus, BLOOM, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, and Painted Bride Quarterly, among other journals and anthologies. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a colony of feral cats.