Matthew Hittinger Two Men on a Bed sounded erotic : affix homo and you qualify desire not bodies : but suggested a plot a scene and that word history : so let me invert sequence and dispense three facts : Francis Bacon’s 1953 composition echoed an 1887 photo by Eadweard Muybridge : and I write, type this rather : in early 2003 : one hundred thirty four years since homosexuality came to be : forget history: its language bores me : let’s trace memory : first time I was one of two men on a bed : July 1997 : want details : our bodies blurred where they met in shadow : the spine’s arc of light slight swell of dimpled glut inner line of thigh the calf’s tight half : who’s on top : well that depends at which point you enter how the body bends and how you decide to plot bodies and bed if you feel anchored by a room’s rectangle or a sphere’s gravity : side to side cheek on cheek elbow hooked under knee
Spirit at the Gate, Jeff Foster
the crossed leg pointed foot : should I pull these shapes out of focus mute the palette : would you rather words like mount slime teeth baredlike-an-animal : I draw lines : two diagonals one horizontal two verticals : and create three walls and a ceiling : but must I say perspective recedes
Matthew Hittinger is the author of Pear Slip, winner of the Spire Press 2006 Chapbook Award, Narcissus Resists (GOSS 183, 2009) and Platos de Sal (Seven Kitchens Press, 2009). Shortlisted for the National Poetry Series, the New Issues Poetry Prize, and twice for the Walt Whitman Award, Matthew's honors include a Hopwood Award and The Helen S. and John Wagner Prize from the University of Michigan, the Kay Deeter Award from the journal Fine Madness, and three Pushcart nominations. His work has appeared in many journals including American Letters & Commentary, Center, DIAGRAM, Memorious, Meridian, Michigan Quarterly Review, MiPOesias, OCHO, Oranges & Sardines and elsewhere, including the anthology Best New Poets 2005. Matthew lives and works in New York City.
scene weighed down by a white double bed as it cuts across a black foreground : if I describe two bodies as ashen pasty ghostly must I also urge words like sinister wail and should I pursue bars or can I exit through streaks that rise fall fold and splay like a thin but shimmering veil
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