I like to watch my nephew walk
in crowded airport terminals, outdoor
shopping malls, movie theater lobbies.
He’s unaware of the stares he gets
as he passes by butch boys,
garish girls, libidinous couples.
Seventeen and unconcerned with
open admiration, open desire,
he doesn’t seem to see what I can’t
miss; and I miss it—those looks.
Watching the watchers watch my nephew
and not me, I remember being voted
Best Ass, of ‘73 in my High School Yearbook.
I thought that my ass would last forever.
Should I tell him I’m watching them,
and him? He likes being told he looks
like me at his age. I wish he looked at me
looking at him. It’s not my rock-hard caboose
I miss, I’m not envious. I just wish
I was desired. I wish I looked like me.
Rex Carey Arrasmith writes poetry and fiction in Sedona, AZ and Lāna’I, HI. He is currently working on writing a series of epistolary elegies to friends and lovers lost during the worst of the AIDS pandemic. His work is inspired by the vortexes found in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest and in whale song during the annual Humpback migration in Hawaii. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. He also writes uniquely inspired wedding vows as an ordained Universal Life Minister. His poetry can be found in the Lily Poetry Review, Passenger’s Journal, Ugly Writers, Spillwords, and others.
