Runway

Tell me about the year
made entirely of sweat.
When the disciples named
the ocean by how bare

your stomach was. I want
the history of locas, men
with scales for hands and legs
pumping as accent marks,

tell me of the hundred eyes
howling at the small moon
of your heel, each hurricane
you set in a man’s chest

catching, years later
at the mere mention
of your shins. Hips
two güiros holding wings

of a white thong. Shame
is a plague. Tell me
the heaven of a Miami night.
The drag queen on stage, yelling

ESCANDALOSA! Tongue made
scripture: Use your eyes boys,
this is what we call a man
and a man needs company. Oh father,

divine organizing principle, body
pressed into an arrow, conductor
of the thickest vein,
deceiver of punctuation—walking out

the same way you walked in.