In the biographies they call my heart's
Desire my servant. But his private parts.

Meant more to me than any public role.
Our masquerade demanded self-control

Beyond our capabilities, and yet
My guests were taken in -- as etiquette

Required. (Tchaikovsky leads a modest life:
He makes do with a servant for a wife.)

Less than a retinue, more than a son.
It's true I paid him. Doesn't everyone?

Gregory Woods

1
The sight of him could not have failed to tease
The tender chisel of Praxiteles.

2
But he's math's achievement more than art's:
His body adds up, the sum of its parts.

3
He flaunts his disproportionate erection
As if to violate the Golden Section.

4
He seizes it in one proficient hand
Like the Red Baron coming in to land.

5
He clenches eyelids, fists and arsehole tight
As if he has to come with all his might.

6
He breathes not a word, but a shape the word
Might take in order to emerge unheard.

7
Yet evidence of loving hardly lingers
Longer than the threads of semen on his fingers.

8
His presence radiates through cheap cologne
The finer essence of testosterone.

9
Botanic, fragrant as the hanging gardens
Of Babylon, his florid cock unhardens.

10
I cherish his pelvis, mother-of-pearled
With sperm: another wonder of the world.

Gregory Woods