Where Sandspurs and Mosquitoes Thrive

Modern poetry modern verse conteFmporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

For Matt Gaetz

In Florida the afternoons are a parched

With crush of slugs called damp and guck and heat.

The slugs leave slime on skin where they have marched.

This time is gonorrhea leaving gleet

All over us.  Our genitals are wet.

Discomfort spreads from them to everywhere

Where Satan lives.  Our skin and spirits sweat.

Impatience sets a trap, a slow-grip snare,

And we are waiting, waiting, waiting for

Withheld escape.  We understand in pits

Of dankness what it’s like for every whore

When strangers, so-called men, encroach on tits.

  A thunderstorm brings lightning and relief

     Of whooshing rain sheets flippantly too brief.

~ Phillip Whidden