the queer

The Queer  
My best friend was gay when we first met
he said: I`m gay better tell you before
the lunatics around here tell you.” We became
the best of friends in a way quite unlikely
he spoke English and made the language sounds
like verses of Shakespeare.
My English was rather more basic, English picked
up in late night bars and by whores I met on my
hellish dive into the futility of debauched love.
We could speak to early morning about literature
and acting- my friend was a jobbing actor and
as a young man had dreamed of becoming one.
Then cancer came and killed him
I wrote a necrology about him and sent it to
the local paper that didn`t publish it because  
the word “love” was inappropriately used.
Tom was my best friend and there will be no one
like him again