Green Linden Press

Intimacy
 

If my mother were
alive, she’d want to 

know how it was 

my husband and I
met, would want to 

know what it meant 

to hookup on
dating sites, what 

exactly an “ass- 

hungry power top
with a dick that won’t

quit” looks like, and I

would have to do
my best to tell her 

exactly what I was 

looking for because
that’s what intimacy 

is all about, having 

spent a few decades
flat on my back 

on a couch in a room 

papered over in neutral
colors, testing out 

my faith in a talking 

cure as I got all
gussied up for my

meet-cute that would

outlast the years
my mother had left 

on this earth, the deck 

she kept on shuffling
right up to the end 

a bit worn-out but 

complete were it not
for all the Kings 

that went missing—

(This poem is from the anthology Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry, forthcoming from Green Linden Press.)

Also by Timothy Liu: "Satelites," "Blind Date"

Timothy Liu's latest books are Let It Ride and Luminous Debris: New & Selected Poems (1992–2017). A reader of occult esoterica, he offers intuitive guidance at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, and will be joining the faculty of SUNY New Paltz this fall. www.timothyliu.net

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022