As burgeoning muscles flicker like lowgas streetlamps in the dawn, it’s blooming, boy
Girls who dance like slick newborn fawns. So lead me. There’s a moth on your shirt 
In the closet, a mark on your face: an instruction, my luminous tongue sings 
Sweet as sin or music, whichever calls your body to move
Past me, into the quiet rooms of shame I thought I’d given up. 
Your abs twin my lips. Believe it: I’ve never had a lover move inside me. 
If this was our last night uncovered, could you call me by my name? Imagine 
We’re married: eyes coy behind my bridal veil, your family checking our sheets 
For blood. But this isn’t a constellation, no myth of harvest gods 
We’re singing. You lead me well; I lower my head with a smirk & a bow
Ties my hands together. Hiding, a memory without a name--our careless dress & 
dance. Kiss me soft & quiet, an arrow launched from our quivering mortality. Hands 
Lead us back to the beginning: two boys in a dark room, begging to be made. Holy
Never ends safe, you say. We give each other up. Under naked stars, we pray. 

Willow James Claire (they/them) is a bi, gender-fluid poet and writer from Arizona. Willow’s work has been nominated for both the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize anthologies, and has appeared or is forthcoming in online and print publications including Frontier, The Indianapolis Review, the minnesota review, and Foglifter. Willow holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. You can find Willow on Twitter @thesundaypoet; they currently live in Orange County.