Aylli Cortez

Edifying My Tboy Swag

Shirt loose in men’s bathrooms, I fake hand-washing when
I hear the door open. Your entry is my alarm but I want more

than anything for it to be distant thunder—a Brian Eno album
—September noons that curb the sticky, unbearable air I can’t

be naked to. These day-old dishes in the sink. I too want removal
that restores to pristine states, not cleanliness but to be the clean

way men glance in passing. See, the phallic-shaped stain on my
ceiling is a joke from God, my middle-school seatmate, though

we’ve long since departed I still laugh knowing boys will never
outgrow that phase that maybe one can grow into. Last I checked:

the GoGo Xpress will deliver my readymade fountain
for 500 pesos. I prepare warnings in view of the rider—

Handle carelessly; Recede with caution; Keep dry until it asks
to become a soft, wet paste. I don’t want the package necessarily

but the membership would be nice. Your mailing list of secret
unlocked gazes, eyes whose double doors let both lights in.

Listen. I don’t want you to let me leave. Today we’re swimming
in a pool underwater. Tomorrow, we’ll piss in it. Move on to

the next shallow bathing. When we shout from either end of
an evaporating lake, our signals will be ambient interrupting—

yours and my real hands, pulling through the same exit sign,
wrapping the towel around my waist while no one says anything.

This poem was previously published in HEIGHTS Ateneo Vol. 71, Issue 1 (2023).