Dennis Cooper

Their jeans sparkled, cut off way above the knee, and my friends and I would watch them from my porch, books of poems lost in our laps, eyes wide as tropical fish behind our glasses. Their football flashed from hand to hand, tennis shoes gripped the asphalt, sweat's spotlight on their strong backs. We would dream of hugging them, and crouch later in weird rooms, and come. Once their ball fell our way so two of them came over, hands on their hips, asking us to throw it to them, which Arthur did, badly, and they chased it back. One turned to yell, “Thanks” and we dreamed of his long teeth in our necks. We wanted them to wander over, place deep wet underarms to our lips, and then their white asses, then those loud mouths. One day one guy was very tired, didn't move fast enough, so a car hit him and he sprawled fifty feet away, sexy, but he was dead, blood like lipstick, then those great boys stood together on the sidewalk and we joined them, mixing in like one big friendship to the cops, who asked if we were, and those boys were too sad to counter. We'd known his name, Tim, and how he'd turned to thank us nicely but now he was under a sheet anonymous as God, the big boys crying, spitting words, and we stunned like intellectuals get, our high voices soft as the tinkling of a chandelier on a ceiling too high to see.

for Brad Gooch We snort all our coke on the way to the party. We bring the new album. We dance while we listen. The band is two women whose husbands control them. They do not speak our language. Each syllable’s an obstacle. They are in love with a man. He is in love with another. But they’re in no hurry. They could wait forever. And when they are out on the make for a lover, they’ll always find him. They are the tigers. We are stoned too stoned to. We dance till we’re tired and listen to lyrics we mouth like a language. What we feel, when we hear them, is inexpressible. We can’t put into words. Maybe our dances show it. ABBA lives for their music. We long for each other. They see what we’re doing. They put it on record. They play it, we listen. We are absolutely stunned. We feel, and they know more than anyone can say.