Personal

Abstract

Personal James Davis (bio) Give me a faggot, fashion mags evenly fannedacross his coffee table, who serves drinksin snifters, tumblers, flutes, and says behind, not to euphemize ass, but to signal his nearing,e.g. on a bike. Give me a man like an otter,svelte swimmer with claws to tear flesh from pink varicellate shells, fur matted with saltwater.I want a mouth wet with philosophy,lips slick with persuasion, a beard like my father’s. I want him to cook Sunday brunches for me:eggs Benedict, Bloody Marys, metaphorsfor the morning, for the health of our country. Let us zinc our noses and tube down a riveron psilocybin. Let the summer burn us blondright down to the pubes. Let desire italicize our somberest sentiments: there’s sanddown my swimsuit. And when the green dayages into night, give a patch of damp ground under the viscid flow of the Milky Way—some plot of earth that does not care how we have sinned—and we will be more than cocksucker implies. [End Page 108] James Davis James Davis’s poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Best New Poets, Copper Nickel, Hobart, and elsewhere. He received a residency from The Mastheads and an MFA from the University of Florida. Dorothea Lasky selected him as a finalist for Inverted Syntax’s inaugural Sublingua Prize for Poetry. He lives in Denver. Copyright © 2019 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents