Iron Curtain
Warsaw, Poland, 1988.
3 Minutes in the Closet meant
another stab
at learning how to kiss,
wire hangers clanging,
a pair of gray galoshes
knocked across the floor.
Pressed between
wool overcoats and winter
scarves, I smelled
the boy’s cologne,
like something furred
had died inside his shirt.
Our teeth scraped together,
the friction of a car
that drags its muffler down
the road, his hands searching
the back pocket of my jeans
as though to find a missing key.
He whispered Polish phrases
in my neck, your neck he said
your neck. I wanted words
that came out hot, American,
like kiss me fuck me fuck me.
I only tasted metal.
Or maybe I wanted to pull back
the screen dividing us,
touch the velvet part of him,
break the skin’s barrier,
inflexible and cold. 
In the Grand Theater
Iron Curtain
Purged History of
Three Generations