Craigslist Ode by Jameson Fitzpatrick

Craigslist Ode

 

To the young doctor, balding in Stuy Town,

and the straight boy from my school

I could never find on Facebook.

To the boy from the other college downtown,

with the good abs and the bad skin,

to the married guy in real estate who insisted

the sheets be fresh and liked to look into my eyes

the whole time he touched me. To that.

To the first one to reach for his wallet after,

somebody’s father, and the first to tell me

a childhood secret. To the famous journalist

with the big dick I fell in love with,

and the baseball cap through the peephole

who said “this isn’t going to work”

when I opened the door. To the guy

who held me down but wouldn’t touch my dick,

to the redheaded bro in Murray Hill

whose dick smelled so awful. To my crush

from Hebrew class, to his name appearing

like a blessing in my inbox. To the guys

who used their real emails, bless them,

the guys whose girlfriends were out of town

or didn’t give head or wouldn’t wait up.

To the guys who’d never done this before.

To the liars. To the one who was older

than he said he was, to the one whose pictures

were old, to the one who tasted the way

old people smell but I did it anyway.

To the men who came from Queens

and Long Island and Jersey just to see me.

To the hairy guy with the yoga body,

the one with the muscles, the college wrestler

with the cute little dick. To the first one I took

money from, who was from Ireland,

and the second, who was from India,

to the guy on my block I felt bad for,

to the variety of religious undergarments

draped over my bookcase with care.

To the Looney Tunes boxers,

to the hemp necklace, to the fat gold ring,

to the appendectomy scar, to the old burn,

to the birthmark shaped like a country,

to the country it was shaped like,

to the gum removed and then stuck

to the windowsill, to these details

belonging to no one, to my ugly men

and my beautiful, all of them, the ones

unremembered even in metonymy,

my each and every who could have hurt me