after Alvin Baltrop
                                for Dan and Jim

let’s start this memory with a seashell, a crab 
falling out of its side, the size of pearl crawling 
in between giants and toward something equally 
as unforgiving. a thing from the depths died 
and washed up on shore and we marveled 
at its husk. took photos to prove maybe 
dinosaurs still exist. not every memory is as bad 
as i make it seem in these poems. history is dependent 
on survival which by that logic 
it must mean i am alive, somewhere 
in someone’s poems. Alvin, may i tell you
a story about joy? Jim and Dan and i 
decide to go to riis beach. i could bore you 
with the logistics of a lost wallet or the hours 
spent on a train headed in the opposite 
direction but what good would that do 
for us? it happened, we are better for it. 
the beach was crowded with shirtless bodies 
and consent and we could hear the clashing 
radios start to harmonize into a soft hum. each of us 
would take turns running down to the pitless 
ocean, just to wet our toes, see what men might be 
around and wanting. the waves were pulling 
at our feet, such longing, this ocean provides, to be as old 
as touch but unable to hold your beloved as i am. here, 
i am starting to question loneliness, not its ability 
in me but how much of it i actually own. i placed 
droplets of sunscreen on Dan’s back, on Jim’s 
shoulders, them, cosseting my chest in oil, a pact 
made in as good as blood, gratitude shown as care. 
and if i were to quantify joy, it would be like this; 
chests galore but not how you think. a sea of scars 
and unmade nipples, music boxes that refuse to battle 
each other even from ten feet apart, beloveds rubbing 
lotion into each other until they are a small ocean 
on their own. Yes! joy is something like that, something 
that could never burn.

//

The work of Alvin Baltrop acts as a historical guide for queer individuals. He documented the Piers before and during the rise of the AIDS epidemic. The piers became a space for lust, home, fear, and safety among queer people during this time. Baltrop, obsessed with the piers, devoted a large portion of his life towards photographing its beauty and complexity. I, like Baltrop, have become obsessed with the piers, yet only in the way Baltrop experienced them. This work is to search for queer utopia in the face of extinction, a fate we have pushed against for lifetimes. 

//

(Note: Baltrop’s work is not in the public domain, which is why we’ve linked to it above.)