Couple-hungry, full-grown but still in your teens,
off limits and thus irresistible,
you tweak my demon urge. Rusty at first,
then all too lubricated, my sexed brain
banters with itself, is finally convinced
it is not you I want to fuck to quivering.
Myself? My own desire?
Lust, lust, love’s my snare, the lure of the mind,
the wit of you, your words and photographs.

At first, what I fear is success, a succubus,
a love-pit soft and bottomless. You seem
so poised to fall, ripe boy. My mind plays films
sticky and raw—the young bridegroom smothering
in feathers plucked for his bed,
myself an ogre at the feast, gobbling
youth’s wet rations.

After a week apart,
I’ve tried to imagine you plain, even grotesque,
safely unappealing, safely young.
Face-to-face I find your features all too pleasing:
eyes the greener side of hazel,
a patch of hair above your t-shirt collar.

Because I am the wiser one, I know
the choice is mine to make—or so it seems.
I will not smooth your hair, still snarled from sleep;
I will not touch your knee by accident.
Above all, when you mention a girlfriend,
I will not let flat grief replace this tug.

I release rights to your wit, your sweat, your passion
for whatever nudes you shoot or words you write.
I will not let myself be gazed upon.
Young man crepuscular, you’re on your own,
to find out what nights hold and days can hide.