Gordon Taylor
Gordon Taylor (he/him) is a queer poet who walks an ever-swaying wire of technology, health care and poetry. His poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, Plenitude, Tickle Ace, The Bridport Arts Prize Anthology, Months to Years, Five South, Open Journal of Art and Letters, and is forthcoming in Wire’s Dream.
ALL I EVER WANTED
It was an accident we wore
the same red gingham shirt
to our first tea, that Saturday
in the friendliest neighbourhood,
with the most expensive brie.
You bought a bag full, and it was fate
we believed, wearing the same red
shirt, walking hand in hand, late
summer sky like grey crumpled paper
and later we twinned on the plaid
flannel comfort of your bed, cigarettes
and ginger snaps. I used to have a dream
of a house with many wings and a man
and a dog but it was just to make me
love myself. My husband had a shining
magazine face and marriage was legal
in all countries and we never had to recover
from anything, especially not passion fading
into a horizon at the end of a weekend, red
gingham shirts still on the floor. I made you
a copy of me, listened to how you fought
being gay and I chanted a refrain
of I understand and held you in your inertia,
once my own, watched you jump
bravely over barrels in a video game,
acquiring coins and keys to unlock
a secret prize. We talked about first times
and hope in those two weeks of waiting
for HIV test results— back when
we thought the end of time couldn’t apply
to us— though the idea of eternity
is scary and the only finished life
is an unfinished one. You noticed
my eyes are so much darker
than yours and I stopped eating cheese
because of my swampy stomach.
You quit smoking and used the money
to buy clothes, joined a support group
for men coming out. I planted
sunflowers, learned they face each other
when there is no sun and turn away
when the weather is better.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 