Practicing

The New York Times

Practicing
________________

—for Marie Howe & Alex Dimitrov

i’m sick of love poems—
for boyz and girls that i
kissed in seventh grade

songs of furtive blowjobs—
in crummy basement gyms
hymns to stupid str8t jocks

the gay avant garde is dead—
post-aids poetics is about as
pretty as a syphilis ward

fuck the new york times—
sticking poetry into the
style and fashion section

fuck the new york times—
dishing hart crane down by
the docks the fleet’s in honey!

fuck the new yorker—
for making gay poetry more
heteroflexible for breeders

my generation’s had it—
paunchy john ashbery and
shell-shocked edmund white

miss bidart, miss doty—
squeezing into that makeshift
greenwich village salon

cocktails, handsome waiters—
shrimp on skewers, salmon in
cucumber cups, what’s your type?

“honey, times new roman—
that’s my type,” a 20-something
poet smirks fifth avenue chic

poetry salon parlor tastefully—
furnished with books, midcentury
modern chairs, a jay davis

anne howe drones on—
linda’s basement like a boat
with booths and portholes

gloria’s father owns a bar—
downstairs with spinning stools
& young sailorboys in heat

practicing, practicing—
that’s all we did was practice
until we grew up and screwed

Denise Kelly, “Practicing” from
What the Dead Do. Copyright
© 2012 by Denise Kelly
Reprinted by permission of
Going Down on Moses, Inc.