Having a Gay Awakening at the Elm Grove Public Pool
They carried their bodies like they had none,
the men I watched at the public pool
when no one was watching me—
Not even God,
whose body I imagined
while sitting erect in the crooked church pews
as gleaming, hefty, cloudy, wide.
My church: a pool of shirtless men.
What stirred under the water
I couldn’t name, wouldn’t tame.
O had I known
the animal want I wanted
to name and tame me.
Thank God I slept with God.
Thank God He ghosted me.
Thank chlorine water and summer heat
and the blood flower blooming
wild, yes, this beating want,
those bodies disastered
into doorways, the body made
enjambment, this Godhood I found
when I was too sacred and too scared
to be both prey and prayer,
hands cupped
on holy bushfire.
*
Sean Glatch is a queer poet, storyteller, and screenwriter in New York City. His work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Milk Press, 8Poems, The Poetry Annals, on local TV, and elsewhere. Sean currently runs Writers.com, the oldest writing school on the internet. When he’s not writing, which is often, he thinks he should be writing.
This is a great poem.