Spit

Traffic backed up on the Second Narrows Bridge, they’d
closed our lane and made us merge, I saw the car swing
up beside ours. My seven-year-old mouth cried don’t
let him in. You inched forward a hand’s width, so tiny
a provocation to cause such honking and shouting.
The moustached man, sleek and muscled, eyes narrow, leapt
out, cursing, yelling, engine running. Then you were
circling each other, a dance of men. He spat on the hood
of our station wagon. You tried to match his mark, spit
forming at your lips, but it was not in you to. He grabbed
your placid businessman’s wrist, pinned it against your belly.
I don’t know who was trying to hit or defend, the man’s face
crayoned with rage. He saw me and let go. Swore one last
time. We shut ourselves back in, could not speak, his
saliva still not dry, its separate bubbles like sad
jewels or the eyes of an insect. I felt your shame,
I, who had perhaps saved you, who had caused all this.

 

What we live with

His testing kit reminded me of a box of Crayola crayons,
the deluxe pack of sixty-four, and even then, I wondered
who had come up with all the names and who’d
arranged them as they were. These were vials not wax,
filled with the usual antigens that cause humans
to react, he said. But still I had questions, pushed
forward by the same impulse that makes me write,
a stupid grinned mystification at how everything
works. He made a scratch on my arms for each bottle,
a needle-thin chalk mark that did not draw blood. As he
ran the tests (a drop of this, a drop of that) I reacted
to so much, my arms lashed out in jumpy itching,
tiny welts rising on my skin like birthday candles:
grass, moulds, cat fur, dust mites, ragweed. Nothing
serious, my body not quite suited for the world I live in.

 

A Half

A first for everything: the touch
down on the old island, the tube
ride to the hostel, though two
kind blokes offered a mattress,
pointed me to FF. I wasn’t drawn
to the shaved heads of pale
Londoners but to an imposter
Englishman, an American football
jersey across his wide shoulders.
You’ve never tried it, mate?
You really should.
But he was careful, this devil gave
me only a half. Your first time.
Pressed it into my hand.
What I wonder now:
what if it had worked?
As when I discovered a taste
for fine food and never looked
back. I was twenty-two, open
to the world, I felt
as if I had sculled a tall
flute of champagne and though
I did try to kiss that faux
athlete, something
would tell me later my first
ecstasy hadn’t worked.

 

© 2008 Andy Quan

Sydney-based Canadian writer Andy Quan is the author of four books, Six Positions (gay erotica), Calendar Boy (short fiction) and Slant (poetry), and his new book of poetry, Bowling Pin Fire. His erotica has appeared in many anthologies of erotica including Arsenal Pulp Press' Quickies series and Cleis Press' Best Gay Erotica series. He’s also a singer and songwriter and by day, works on international policy and programs that involve HIV.
Visit him online at: www.andyquan.com