pyre

beyond the grasp of touch
lay bodies un-caressed,
like penitents wailing
and gnashing their teeth without God;
across a black room spotlighted
they move on bandaged knees,
blindfolded above their chattering teeth,
confusing hard electric light,
humiliating them, with what displays
Elysia to the saved.

when I was but an Essex lad
I hated my body; and looking back
I see a grace in that. I was not beautiful enough
to sell my flesh for hard and brutal use,
protected by the tallow coarse and rough,
although I’d come to think and seek
the fantasies of S&M, the burning like
a faggot on the pyres of an English field.

across from where I lived
a block of flats had once played host
to murder of a young, gay man like me.
like many such my dad warned of.
dad taught me all such men
were either burnt
or burners of the flesh,
faggots or pyre-lighters in the field.

but sometimes now the old
and uncorrupted need is what creeps through,
the secret wanting to be held,
a coarse and male hand across my arm,
the fingertips grazing, a little love
to stoke a more forgiving flame.