Dear Boy In the Mirror Who Will Die on the Barricade

In this light, your hair is more blond than pink.
A starched collar, a fierce and joyous smile,
you are committed to Patria and nothing else.

Nothing has made me understand love
and confused my sense of self
more than slipping into your fictional skin

I would lower my register
I am down the octave

I would lie with your flat bare chest
against the curve of his shoulder,
kiss the knob of his spine
in philia.

Let his wine-dark breath brush the back of your ears,
his burning hands to our future plans, saying,
“Let me sleep here until I die.”
“You are incapable-”
“You'll see.”

We are Romantics at heart.

You see, I know love.
It exists above the waist,
at the knot in your schoolboy's tie:
in the space between your first and middle fingers
where lips brush a knuckle and no further.