Sissy Aqueducts
For Wayne Koestenbaum
Legionnaires loiter on the Via Appia,
Smutty with Visigoth gore & as smug
As frat bros shotgunning Budweisers
With glitter entangled in their pubic hairs’
Michelangelian sprawl. Ay me, the sub
Sighs to his dom, deep in his Arendt
Under piney parasols, while the fanfares
Of Respighi mount the skies—the spit
Collects at the corners of the six bucc-
Inators’ lips, like dew falling on hyacinths,
Racemes moody by the battered racquet,
Or the Rococo, sperm-candle lambency
Of the Lacedaemonian prince, struck
Dead by a tennis ball, his god-beloved body
Immaculate on a cascade of marmalade
Chiffon. O Tiepolo, miglior fabbro, your
Satanic atlantid is castrated by Apollo’s
Hand. A macaw in coral and jade—
Part Aeolian harp, part Aztec whistle skull—
I sing what I see behind the leaves:
In search of a lost Joe Dallesandro scene
Circa Flesh, I find only Callas in Turandot
Headpiece weeping and sweeping
The cobbles with the hem of her caftan
While Pasolini leads the legionnaires away,
Arm hooked in spray-tanned arm.
And the arches there—pink as Daniel’s
Asshole as he awaited the lions
And graffitied with all the vulgarities
Of Pompeii—look barely able to stand,
But the waters they bring are so sweet—
They taste of such distant mountains.
