mothman 

"Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something"
-Point Pleasant Register 1966

this is a promise to not
be scared of you when we meet

to not runaway

your eyes burning red match sticks
against the black ragged backdrop
of a body

who were they to you?

that first couple you revealed
yourself too in the cold
of november in point pleasant, west virginia

they had already been 
unnerved by the WWII munitions plant
& it's vacant promise of
detonations long reverberated

she asks him from 
the passenger seat

do you try to forget the war?

& he stares forward 
hand on the steering wheel of their 
black Chevy Bel Air 
& says 

not tonight, everything is lovely tonight

how badly have
you wanted to be 
in a love poem?

& there you emerged
in the rear view mirror

"a large man with ten foot long wings"

car horn & tire squeal

were you scared of
losing them with out 
explaining yourself?

would you have told them
war stories?

stories of chemicals
birthing your in the flat
lands behind the TNT plant?

stories of porch lights
you had worshiped?

stories of men who you
left azaleas 
in their mailboxes for?

are you gay like me?

i knew that i wanted
to be your lover 
from the first blurred 
photo of you from
the summer of 2007
when the town was startled 
that all these years
& despite all the heart break
that you had somehow
survived

i too exist in obscure images

standing in my bedroom
staring into my iPhone camera
& snapping photographs 
of my body too eagerly

my hand shaky from posing

unfocused face
blurred dull peach skin

what could the cryptozoologists 
read me as?

am i a flatlands monster?

a jersey devil?

or am i a mothman like you

i wish it would have been
me all those years ago

in the black Chevy Bel Air

i would have pulled over
& maybe we could have talked
in the back seat 

i would have taken you home
& asleep on my sofa 
i would make waffles in the morning

when others asked me
if i was looking for a wife
i would smile & tell them
that i was happily taken 

at night i would come
home & we would lay together

the distortion of 
our nonsense bodies 
making dimming the boarders
of our own skeletons

i want to be a bleary 
image surfacing on
the far reaches 

i want to be indescribable 
with you 

we can take long walks
through the vacant military 
buildings that now
decay in the depths
of the wild life reserve

you'll open your mouth
to speak 

echoing sound of car horn
& scream

i'll put a finger to
your mouth

could you love
an bleary boned man 
like me?