In the dream,      I’m pinned beneath the whale’s tongue.
Her song echoes through me and my bones shift, toes shattering
and reassembling in strange, new configurations...

Whale Dream

I’ve had several first kisses.
    None of them counted
      until I wanted them to.

            This was supposed to be the one,
         the wash away all doubt, bathe me
               in his blood and deliver me
            to paradise one...

Private Party

It was your birthday 
in the back room of Confetti's, with tiki cages 
and a dance floor like a boxing ring. I saw him 
holding you, cradling your ass against the zipper...

I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance

We kiss watching Glee, the pizza box
open beside us like a cathedral. You fumble
with the clasps of my overalls, and I can smell
your cologne, the whiskey barrel freshness
of your skin...

Vanilla Shit

Go, go, tiny dancer
swirling on burnt orange tiles, fawn-limbed,
stumbling in her swamp water tutu, air 
rumbling, her eyes full of salsa and daffodils...


Weary Dancers

Always have a face pic. Lead with your best selfie, the one in your 
bathroom mirror where your hair billows like bonfire and you
can’t tell how big your stomach is because your clothes are a  
desert in which men get lost and cannot ignore...

Abecedarian on 21st Century Mating Rituals for the Homosexual Male

He wants to tie me down. I sit across
the coffee table, my arms caked in wax
that drips from his mouth, a gaping smokestack
pulsing feverishly. I calculate the loss...

Hunter Burke

Selected work