ALPHABET STREET – Poetry, by Randall Mann

ALPHABET STREET

“Adore” was my song, Back in ’87. Cool beans, I liked to say, desperately uncool. Except for you. Florida, a dirty hand gesture; the state, pay dirt. Headphones on, I heard, in a word, you were sex, just in time. Who was I kidding? Then, as now, love is too weak to define. Mostly I just ran, not yet sixteen, overreaching. Track star, pretty uniform. Queer, of course. Adore. Rewind: my beloved teammates, sometimes called me Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or CTC, being neither black nor white. Until the end of time. Vanity would never do it for me. Would you? You were definite, the X in my fix. And now, you’re gone. The old, on repeat. The new zeal: zero.

https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Razor-Poems-Randall-Mann/dp/0892554304