He Was Gay, Gary Cooper? – poems by Jendi Reiter

Don’t cry to them when your chair breaks under you.
You’re no one’s dumpling wife,
no cashmere man will clip your dishonor
like the joke plastic
surgeon unblemishing that truckload ass.
Your secret sugar
men are silent when they come
to the rattling underpass
or parked car where a pistol
surprises their heads into gravy
quick as a wet dream.

In the old days your captain
spits about, they did the job without expression
like you rolling
your tongue around the guard’s piece, like you
belly-rocking on the carpet
under your crew’s laughter,
swivel-chair wheels on your back.
Abused cowboys
and dead conquistadors shut their mouths
around the pedestal
where lesser men cat-fight over history.

Was that stupid beautiful son
of a boss silent too, when you plugged him
in the hole that pride left?
He bloodied the cards,
busting to force himself royal,
but if he’d spared you
one ecstasy glance you might have told him
jokers play longer.