antmen pimentel mendoza

I Lean into the Throat of Summer

           after Jenny Xie

 hung vine lovely boy with arm muscles :: popsicle 
syrup drip, pore strip, and semi-permanent ash hair dye

pedal, pedal, whiz :: a backyard temple combination plate
and a probiotic aperitif

leg silk on leg silk and late summer harvest heft of sugarsweet
fruit in my hand, in my mouth :: my mouth open in May

i kiss you, the meridian of you, running long from the heavy custard 
apples. i kiss and know the ends of you, know the makings of you.

fielding, visions, pointing, floats :: with eyes closed i see an imagined 
end, the neon fluff swimming just beyond what i can know

later, i trace my own seam with my foot up on the tiled shower wall

Self-Portrait as the Potato that Flew around My Room

My freshman roommate trudged through 
his wall to wall lagoon of clothes nose-first,
sniff-testing pairs of boxers before class. I see him

in the piles of clothing in my room and in the laugh
in your apology: “Sorry I keep cumming onto your
pillow.”

Nanay would say I fall hard and often and I think of
Big Pun featuring Joe and my high school boyfriend
asking,“I just crush a lot” isn’t a Mac Miller lyric?

I am never mum. I scream from all rooftops.

I think friends are the keepers of good deeds 
you don’t remember but when I fall in love, I try 
my best to retain every sweet thing.

In October 2014, I post a video of Frank Ocean
performing and caption it with a birthday greeting,
what do you know about scorpio x scorpio love, Frank?

but, really, I don’t know much about that myself.
“The truth,” I tell Kris, “is that I fall in love ten
times a day walking down the street.”

I hope for your clemency with my slow-sudden realization
that every set of four walls I bring you into might embarrass me:
Be gentle on my decor and the haphazard piles I collect,

easy on each bumbling story I tell, soft with the
dishes I’ll wash in a kitchen in the apartment we don’t rent yet.