Fuck nature. Post-coital, but pre-deep sleep, chest heaving, S. tells us a few breaking bedtime stories. Like when Little Bo Peep’s childhood fell into a Blakean black hole. Or when Babe of the barnyard guest starred on Sex and the City and stole every scene. He’s a pretty boy prince born to be horny, a knight errant on blue errands (by blue, I mean, slightly pornographic), a Batman-style vigilante who can best his enemies with Latin cognates, and a private detective, aka dick, codename Dada Baudelaire, who voyages nightly to the darkest bar in the theater district. Neck-tied and live-wired. Picking up bad birds. Let’s share our bodies like works-in-progress. The page is where we are free to explore and experiment. Do you want to go back to my nest and undress the origins of desire? While outside these poems, wild dogs bark and sirens blare, I’m inside them, furiously self-reflecting, sucking on air, telepathically texting S. the fire emoji. A Boy in the City by S. Yarberry (Deep Vellum, 2022).
