BY JAMES DAVIS
Gainesville Sestina
In my village, the people ride cowboys
and thereby save horses, as advised by their Indian-
manufactured silk-screen tees. Sex workers
dodge water balloons hurled by policemen,
which, even in Florida, is not cool. Fixed-gear bikers
sport mutton chops and cutoff jeans—soldiers
against the tyranny of fossil fuel, soldiers
with tattooed calves even the deftest cowboy
couldn't lasso. Remember when riding a bike
was dorky, a bourgeois hobby? Now it's indie,
subversive, an eco-friendly fuck-da-police,
an homage to some abstract working
class, perhaps, one that never had to work
for the University, that never soldiered
through a lunch rush at a food court or policed
coolers at Griffin Stadium, where Cowboys-
to-be plow through ranks of Seminole Indians.
The truly poor do not ride fixed-gear bikes,
double-fixed or flip-flop. If they do bike,
it’s only when their cars have finally stopped working,
engines rusted, victims of an eternal Indian
summer. But when the DJ mashes up Soulja
Boy and Toby Keith at the hip-hop/cowboy
disco; or when, outside, a policewoman
lets a tipsy sorority sister cop
a feel of her steed's velvety nose; or when a biker
revs his hog for a Saran-wrapped drag queen—that, kemosabe,
is what we call progress. Ask the construction worker
installing tanning beds in the dorms. Ask the soldier
recruiting privates outside Chick-fil-A. Ask the Indian
physicist who explains she is thirty-five, and Indian,
but takes a pamphlet anyway. It's like the old GPD
saying goes: "For a scrap of colored ribbon, a soldier
will fight to his death." Maybe the bikers
have figured it out, but the PhDs are busy working
through Baudrillard's meditations on the Marlboro cowboy.
And me? Why, I’m one-sixteenth Cherokee. My bike's
a police-auction ten-speed. I work construction.
[Insert soldier.] See? [Insert cowboy.]
The Weekend After
We spent Independence Day
in Santa Fe.
The hotel was OK.
We found room to be gay
at restaurants, over beers,
in Georgia O’Keefe’s early years.
We found room for tears.
We saw a Pixar movie, two queers
sobbing in the dark. Thank god something let us.
The week before, we’d learned your status.
And mine. It didn’t get us
both. We were no longer lovers
in the carnal sense. We shared a queen
and left no stain.
The fireworks were canceled by the rain.
You complained
about my music, my driving, my silence.
I didn’t argue, my feelings’ absence
itself a kind of violence.
We took pictures in the ruins
of the Bandelier. We saw a stag.
We ate Frito pie out of the bag.
Climbing a ladder leaned against a crag,
you posed, one hairy leg
kicked up, fist under your beard.
We found room to be weird.
We idled on the shoulder till a storm cleared.
The end was closer than it appeared.
Club Q
I am the only gay bar in a military town
where cadets count football scores in push-ups
and Blue Angels scream contrails through the sky.
I am the dance floor where nobody dances,
the pool table where nobody shoots,
the always full bowl of condoms
by the always empty restrooms. I am the host
of Wednesday-night karaoke, the first and last
to sing. I don’t mind the lack of competition.
I am the love between two boys who’ve just met,
the safety of a fenced-in patio, the warmth
of a cigarette lighter, the sweetness of saliva.
I am a phone number written on a napkin
stuffed into the cargo pocket of BDU trousers
cut off at the knee, frayed and unhemmed.
I’m not fooling anyone. I am the One-
Year Bible on a nightstand. My new bookmark
has ten digits and says please call me.
I am the fist-sized cloud rising from the sea
after Elijah slaughters his 450th prophet of Baal.
I was the drought. Now I am the rain.
James Davis lives in Denver. His poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Defenestration, Copper Nickel, Best New Poets, 32 Poems, and elsewhere. He is a 2019 Mastheads Resident, a graduate of the University of Florida's MFA program, and director of the Denver/Boulder Scrabble Club.