To the Children of 1986

We’ve been born into the world
as the middle child, our hilarity
a touching means to pacify
our self-deprecation, the ease
in which we fall in love and stay
in love heartrending. But our

hearts’ blood just doesn’t congeal
as easily as it might, our tenderness
toward tradition baring the grief
we endure in the course of change—
we’ll love our partners far past familiarity
and into gossamer, the indentations

left on our side of the bed as defined
as our devotion. I see in us the true capacity
to lay our everything down for greatness,
but the even stronger instinct to protect
and abide by our families. I’m concerned
our fear of fast food isn’t strong enough.

I’m amazed how willing we are to die
alongside the people we’ve lost, our tears
the first and fastest to fall, the gift of our groans
more tender than any eulogy. I’ve lived
in our houses—the walls either stark naked
and sterile or pasted over with thick layer

after layer of prints—our inner rooms
as barren as monastic chambers
or stocked full of plants and pianos,
heavy curtains and dark furniture.

I’m sorry to find our beauty- riddled bodies
slumped on barstools, the rawness
of our perceptions dulled down by the necessity
to function. I’ve had to witness the best of our kind

leap from high points to beg the comprehension
of our makeup before they met the earth. I see us
dying out there—something akin to a defect
in our flesh instilling the desire to run knives
across our wrists. We’ve sought love from both sexes,
our elders, the great novels, God.
.
We can never connect more deeply than when we
are among our own, but I fear our engagements run such high risks—
the only man I’ve ever loved brewed Jasmine tea
with honey and moved his strong hands across

the piano in the melancholy song of moon rise
until my aching eyes fell to close and silent
and he played and played so that so that even
my dreams took on his fragrance.