Butterflies

         How fun is it to be “at risk,” to flicker

like the monarchs born daredevils?

+

Black, I have a 50% chance            

 to get HIV in my lifetime.

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I love my brother.

        He still calls me a faggot

                when he’s angry. I think he loves me.

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A glass mirror is a good comedian, edgy and reflective.

Though my brother is more

like a lake when he kills a crowd

of me. I walk in and somehow another me

 survives to do the same.

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I once asked a man to hit me and call me a faggot.

I thought I’d like it.

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  The ember is the best unit of sex.

 It left a kaleidoscope

 in my temple of stained glass: torches

 cast through the image of a torch, a race

 between the flames and the string

 of saliva thinning—

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 An arrogant priest

 thinks he knows what’s on the other side

 of the glory-

hole.

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 Candles are the worst at worship

 and war. They cry silently

 as they burn,                            rimming

the darkness,                   running                

themselves

down        

to the base.         The vigil

+

is over.

Submerged, I saw the lanterns blinking

above water before they, too,

+

sunk.

 Is the poem an ember,

 a lake,

 or a hole

 I run my tongue through?

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 The answer is, I loved my brother, then

I loved him.