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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