Diatribe of the Virgin Homosexual

[heslopian]

my Sodom is deserted,
the frame houses razed
and the cinders removed,
the lone salt idol long vanished
(she was a woman anyway).

my windows are open
but no one climbs in,
no trainer on the sill
signals a presence,
only the cold
washes through the trees
like a housewife scrubbing
her son's underpants.

on screen men like me
are Byronic studs,
courting their fellows
like characters from
one of Oscar Wilde's wet dreams.
with shining torsos
and tormented eyes
they lust and long
and discover themselves
while awaiting an award
for their bravery.

why are these actors always white?
always with perfect arses and
high on faux testosterone,
leaning and wincing like apes,
as though a hint of effeminacy
is the sign of a lesser human?

I was not raised in Wyoming,
the sixties precede the year of my birth,
I'm not a cowboy
nor do I tend sheep,
so why am I supposed to find common ground
with the story of Brokeback Mountain?

were the love scenes that tender?
or were they simply erection starters?

perhaps I'm just bitter?
yes, that's probably it.
when you're nineteen and never been kissed
and girls want to make you their fey wind up toy,
and men ask with horrified fascination,
like gawkers at the scene of some gruesome crime,
just how you can do "what you guys do,"
bitterness spreads like stain on a sheet
from a newly slain hymen.