Adrian Slonaker
Loafing beside the basalt bridge
on the border of Here and There,
of my tongue and yours,
I’m mystified by the mosaic
of laddishness lurking in your skin.
With your ash-stained hoodie
and ominous eyebrows,
you could pass for a delinquent except
for your dimples-
droll enough for a baby-food label-
slathered with shards of after-hours neon.
Your gritty enigmas attract,
yet I am too transparent;
sable satin, frilly French ballads and
vocal inflections like sugary chirruping
mark me too easily:
too much of a girl to be a boy
but also too much of a boy to be a girl.
I’m the freakish in-between,
not fathoming why or how
About the Author
Adrian Slonaker crisscrosses North America as a language boffin and is fond of opals, owls, fire noodles and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Adrian’s work, which has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net, has been published in WINK: Writers in the Know, Ariel Chart, The Pangolin Review and others.