--- C H R I S T O P H E R   D A V I S

Look across from us, at that old sun queen slumped,
in polyester slacks of brilliant gold,
a blouse adorned with sunflowers,
on this open-air bus to Patong Beach.
A bag of rolled English newspapers
between his orange ballet slipper
and his fuzzy mustard-colored bedroom boom
his bangs white and wild,
his headphones chanting,
his freckled leather staring
into the passing
jungle, did he come
to Thailand for Buddha,
or to buy boys?

Why not invite him to our hide-out,
our abandoned factory, in America?
He might like that room on the top floor
where some art punk took black spray paint,
and, on bricks the dull red of dried blood,
did a cartoon Crucificion, Christ
rolling His big eyes,
a thumbtack stuck into His palm.
In one corner, a rolled newspaper
swollen with old rain, a bloated
foolscap boner.

"Between these old work rooms,
the doors were long ago unscrewed,
lifted from their hinges:  look, stranger,
from one end of our commune to the other,
then stand with us at this glassless window
and chant into our jungle:  between
train track trestles, sunflowers, surfers
rubbing rotten peach flesh all over
each other's tan torsos, sticking
lit matches into one another's navels.
Lust with us.  We could hurt you,
all of us one beast, its zillion
faces snapping madly
in us all, the dead
end of our world inside
each belly."