Deal New and selected poems

Deal The sun sets. We are all robots. Market forces. --Ed Smith Eating cereal over the sink, I think, this is what's real: the urgent piss; the grout like doubt. By now, Anonymous, no gent, is in his Lyft...   Adrift. This fall, all the kids want to shoot vids, amateur  auteurs, little hard Godards. To boot. Spittle, my haunt.   I want my hair. And, a split, somewhere between mathematics and tricks buried in the yard, the dream a multi-level scheme. Get a shovel.   I shrivel-- by bleak acronym, boutique gym, Commie leak, Jimmie hats, metallic antibiotic, lost chats on a hill.   A hell of passive investors. Reboot love, with massive clawback provisions, money dripping off your robot back. The monsters. My stars. The Mortician in San Francisco This may sound queer, but in 1985 I held the delicate hands of Dan White: I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk was made monument--no, myth--by the years since he was shot.   I remember when Harvey was shot: twenty, and I knew I was queer. Those were the years, Levi's and leather jackets holding hands on Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk-- elected on the same day as Dan White.   I often wonder about Supervisor White, who fatally shot Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk, who was one of us, a Castro queer. May 21, 1979: a jury hands down the sentence, seven years--   in truth, five years-- for ex-cop, ex-fireman Dan White, for the blood on his hands; when he confessed that he had shot the mayor and the queer, a few men in blue cheered. And Harvey Milk?   Why cry over spilled milk, some wondered, semi-privately, for years-- it meant "one less queer." The jurors turned to White. If just the mayor had been shot, Dan might have had trouble on his hands--   but the twelve who held his life in their hands maybe didn't mind the death of Harvey Milk; maybe, the second murder offered him a shot at serving only a few years. In the end, he committed suicide, this Dan White. And he was made presentable by a queer. Pantoum If there is a word in the lexicon of love, it will not declare itself. The nature of words is to fail men who fall in love with men.   It will not declare itself, the perfect word. Boyfriend seems ridiculous: men who fall in love with men deserve something a bit more formal.   The perfect word? Boyfriend? Ridiculous. But partner is . . . businesslike-- we deserve something a bit less formal, much more in love with love.   But if partner is businesslike, then lover suggests only sex, is too much in love with love. There is life outside of the bedroom,   and lover suggests only sex. We are left with roommate , or friend . There is life, but outside of the bedroom. My friend and I rarely speak of one another.   To my left is my roommate, my friend. If there is a word in the lexicon of love, my friend and I rarely speak it of one another. The nature of words is to fail. Excerpted from Deal: New and Selected Poems by Randall Mann All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.