Pink—the only food dye available
in the factory when it was first manufactured.
My mother admitted she met my father
while making a move on his sexier friend,
who didn’t dig her. Making my dad pink?
How many times has easy lounge lighting,
mixed with martinis, silvered a dull halo?
As a tall boy, I was bombarded by gym teachers
with pushy invites to join the basketball team.
Who would I have become had it been ballet?
But does it matter? The only man who ever
made me want to dance isn’t available. And
today bubble gum comes in nearly every color.
Michael Montlack’s third poetry collection COSMIC IDIOT will be published by Saturnalia. He is the editor the Lambda Finalist essay anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press). His work has appeared in Poetry Daily, Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, Lit, Epoch, Alaska Quarterly Review, and other magazines. This year, he was awarded a residency at MacDowell. He lives in NYC and teaches at NYU and CUNY City College.