Flush Left | Jean-Denis Couillard Hale | 02 02 23

Low Pile Fragments 

The words are plucking right there at my teeth, crowded inside
standing nervously like nape hairs that have
known Fear before
Sitting in crossed-leg confession to my best blanket friend:

a gay late night after-party : memory fractures

drunken, naked hot tub departure when they find out; start in
not a real man : pussies are gross : we can’t sit in this 
             dirty water

i see my hands on the carpet— low pile, beige carpet—
see them tensed, weight bearing
raw knee abrasions; scarred for months. gonorrhea from . . . . . . where? 

i see my hands on the carpet

Someone is kneeling behind me
someone enters the room, sees

Leaves.

resisting force, Someone’s hips pounding as cocained hearts; i’m there i’m    
not there   i   see my hands on the carpet : bang bang bang bang
ecstasy and booze? drugged?   immobile. i feel nothing. Just

my hands 
low pile carpet

: In silence, he bends at the waist, burrowing his bald head in my lap
a monk in wordless prayer. I was the boy burying his feelings 
arm’s-length underground, so our sorrow would not have 
a chance to grow

I gathered his heaviest pieces in my arms, those dampened elder tulips 
split open 
with the dwindling rains of Spring. And we danced to shift weight 

He made love to me there, in the day-lit room
holding my hand through full-body pleasurequakes
crafting a juxtaposition: Then and Now :wide as my weary, wintered sea 
—
He knew
—
but said not a word, just kissed me in his arms
and loved away what hurt 
just loved it all away

♨

Pink  

God gave me roses
pink roses
on my birthday

And God watched as I learned 
to grow thorns; protection 
proving more critical 
than care
Weeds creeping around stems
as a slower kind 
of fatal embrace
 
God was in my garden
when my lover felt the velvet layers
gingerly rubbing petals 
between his fingertips 
he comes to me
he arrives 
with/in me
Oh my, God
was in the garden 

♨

Independence Day	 

"Enchanté, come in"
tête-à-tête with my new 
Grindr conquest
His raised tongue forms the 
tip-less roof for Zhuh
to speak my grateful name
I learned fast, around here 
Jean’s call themselves Jeen in
Non-Haitian company
Stranger casual on my couch, chiseled like a legend
telling me about his family’s 
Kreyòl Ayisyen 
[Haitian Creole] 
Us second gen kids, we don’t know
too much         not like the old folks 
want us to
Told me Haitian Independence Day 
was yesterday
barbecues and block parties—
facts I didn’t know because 
je n’avais 
pas besoin 
de savoir 
[I didn’t 
need
to know]
He eyed my wispy wrist
resting soft like 
Québec snow 
his brawny arm in ancestors’ 
richly earthen hue, these
pieces of Us intertwined 
like an atlas we’d cracked open 
and laid flat upon the table 
His gaze rose, seizing my eyes
“kind of interesting that today
we’re sitting here together”
and together we fell motionless 
and felt that        apart

—Submitted on 02/13/2023

Jean-Denis Couillard Hale (they/them) is an emerging queer, non-binary trans poet originally from Vermont. Their poetry is forthcoming in The Write Launch. Couillard Hale holds a master’s in public health from the UMass Amherst.

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. Click here to submit

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