Author, journalist, and activist Perry Brass explores the intersection of gay male sexuality and spirituality. His books include The Manly Art of Seduction and the novel King of Angels. This poem, which he has kindly allowed me to reprint, was staged as a musical performance at Dixon Place in 2000 with support from the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus.

The Death of the Peonies

At first they are nothing.
A stubble on the earth
and then their stems shoot up
and tangle and gossip with one another,
and twist their leaves about each other
rancorously, grabbing towards the light
thrusting their fingers out in fisted buds
and penis heads, tight, furled, foreskinned out,
and you wait,
anxiously, hesitantly
for a soaking rain to please them, but not
beat them down. And you dream
about their flesh, their baby whiteness
and rich Latin reds and extravagant nights of them—
drifting out to the garden to smell—
then they burst, and you’re shell-
shocked from them: their dazzling, belly-
filling, ruthless gaudiness. Your heart triple
beats around them, a bolero entangled in
cockatiel plumage, a bed
washed with petals and you’re diving in them,
dripping; swimming; sinking obscenely,

licking them—with that scent of apple
and mango and citrus breeze
and the clean creases of babies and a ripened banana
and rain pounding your throat.
And at night you can’t sleep from the thought
that this exalted gallop,
hard, rushing, punching the air—
its moments are numbered. You must go
out and kneel in it, as you once made love
to whale sounds on a boat—insane,
but who could control it?
They go off. Your beloved will forget you
and take new partners, while you
can only watch—but this does not stop you
from rolling in the agony—how unseemly, dreamlike,
yet revolting. They have just taken your heart
and popped it and are eating it,
these awkward, hushed flowers turbaned
in the mating call of earth and testicles;
and you blame them. They made you ashamed.
Stripped you. Reached inside and ripped
some vital piece from you, while you
only wanted to lie face down, drenched in their odor,
in the crotch of their enduring artlessness

as that scent, intimate, fleeting
suddenly clears through you
and you draw up to your knees
and roll into yourself to at last
dissolve what figures between you.
And in a burst, it reaches you:
your own waking nightmare has taken you out
as its victim and pushed its jagged knife
into your chest as the sun beat down,
while you screamed with a gag in your mouth—
God-take-me-now, God-take-me-now,
now, now—owwww—till your blood rushed up
and was met by a heaven of simple lips,
as the Holy Child, knowing, floating
on a cloud of petals blessed you
and kissed that place in your heart
that bled.

Then all folded into One
rolled into its own thrilling head,
presented on its stem, perfect
through infinity, where its blossom
holds and tempts you
with an aroma of such intensity
that it made you stay alone
in the garden all night.

And in a week or so,
there before you
is that final retreat
when the air takes their petals and drops them
to your feet. And you watch them, exhausted,
mute, stunned, left . . . left in the waiting room
of a choking, single breath.