a poem by thomas dooley

First Love


At the bar last night
I couldn’t believe it was you
standing by the men in leather collars
your layman’s jeans and work boots
the same tough suede I remember
below your vestment’s hem
at altar boy camp, tea lights
in our cabin I always hoped
you would choose me
to start the flames.
Now you travel the decade
of my spine, your mouth sudden
on each bone, I turn you over
my lips drag heat
from the thin chaplet of hair
shrining your navel, I hold you
like a chaperone at a theme park
when you held me as we looped
through air and at Mass
when you placed in my hand
a body I could eat.





Thomas Dooley's debut collection Trespass was chosen by Charlie Smith for the National Poetry Series. He is artistic director of Emotive Fruition, a radical poetry reading series where poets and actors collaborate to bring new poetry to the stage. Check him out at thomasdooley.us or emotivefruition.org.