Beautiful Adonis of a Lake Bradford Sandwich Shop
I know you best from the Tennessee Street location
As a hazel eyed sandwich artist
In your transparent gloves smelling of Parmesan cheese.
Splotches of burgundy vinegar blemish
Your company-issued striped shirt.
You look sexy behind that counter of cold, packed meat,
6 to 12 inches of wheat and white bread.
I watch your lips move as you
Ask if I want mayonnaise, mustard
On the foot-long turkey.
Let me take you away from this place,
Be the prince who rides up to unleash you
From your big belly boss.
We can go over to my place, settle down
With a few Clint Eastwood movies, plant a bowl
Of microwave popcorn between our bodies.
How exquisite you look tonight kissing
The buttons of the register with your fingers.
I want to be your lover, your private dancer.
Buy you expensive clothes,
Massage your feet; lay you down to sleep on my sofa bed.
Your name rings in my
Ebony ears. You appear in wet dreams.
I'll have a medium fruit punch
If you share it with me.
Come to the poetry reading
As I read this poem.
I want to introduce you to my parents
As my boyfriend.
The man I’m embracing beneath electric blankets in front of Jay Leno.
Let's sit beneath vanilla lights
In a bar as we get drunk and rowdy, starting fistfights.
End up in the hospital pissing away the pain in bedpans.
You come to me white and warm in jack off dreams.
Nothing can ruin us here.
No one can spoil me to you.
My index finger circles the cap of your red knees.
Peppermint breath tickles your ear.
Tequila tongue pours down my throat.
Brian, sweet sandwich artist, bubble butt stunning
In black shorts, slips sweaty quarter in the jukebox at The Warehouse
As we dance to Stevie Nicks.
Save me from the glory holes of the world,
From the man who calls for my cock from fiberglass partitions.
Brian with curly locks of hair
At your stomach, autumn pubes at your golden groin,
Sneakers scuffed, smeared
With spilled food and generic brand bleach,
Call me 421-2166 when you get off work,
When you've made yourself comfortable after a hot shower.
Wake me with midnight phone calls
Wanting to go for a ride in your rust-colored Camaro.
Oh, Beautiful Adonis
Of a Lake Bradford Sandwich Shop.
Artwork by Bobby Doherty