Flush Left | Guillermo Filice Castro | 01 23 23

My Last Days of Being Straight


I came on to Patricia because I thought I should and
we were alone in my room studying and Dad also liked her
she was cute with her curls and the low heel sandals
she borrowed from our friend Elvira and what Elvira 

had said when I told her how my hands would brush against 
Patricia’s breasts I swear by accident and how Patricia’s hands
almost always landed near my crotch whenever we got up to leave
any place so Elvira opined simple you’re caliente for each other

I said that must be it because I liked Patricia’s tan and we loved
movies and believed people should rise up against their oppressors 
like her Military daddy and the brother who once held her face against 
a space heater close enough to singe one of her gorgeous curls 

my oh my I was left speechless by the story and trying to figure out
how I would make love to her after all my other non-sexual 
encounters with other girls from school and the very sexual ones
with neighbor boys like Manuel in his dad’s garage his hand on my belt

Manuel who’d get married and move away not before blowing me
a kiss from his doorstep before dropping out of my life for good
while Patricia had the wisdom or instinct of turning me down
covering an embarrassed laugh with the hand I tried to hold

like she was Che Guevara and I her guerrilla bride

—Submitted on 10/06/2022

Guillermo Filice Castro is the author of the chapbooks Mixtape for a War (Seven Kitchens Press, 2018) and Agua, Fuego (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His work appears in Allium, Barrow Street, Brooklyn Rail, Court Green, Fugue, The Normal School, and other journals. Born and raised in Argentina, Castro lives in New Jersey.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

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