by Miguel Angel Soto

Bite into my bruised plum
lip let the sweetness stream
down into the wisps on
my chin with your forefinger
drawing a canal tracing
down my thighs, smoothing my
saccharine skin with your shaved
ice exhalation of life.
In the bedroom, I call
you ‘daddy’ because you
know the appellation is
lost to me. In the bedroom,
pulling my thighs closer
to your tempestuous mouth
is like plucking the fullest
peach from a nectarine tree.
In the bedroom, you proclaim
my name the way you detest
it in court, in public, in
the face of your family,
friends, every social border—
you profess, “Timarchus.”
I keep your name in the
verses of my shamed
composition because you
are Aeschines—prune-man,
wrinkling in the sun, drying
your salty legume tears
into the bursting carpels
of my citrus groans. We share
my pleasure outside the
business of your betrayal.
My power comes from the moans
of submission,
palpitating beats, seeping
deeper than the pulp running
down my pith.

Miguel Angel Soto is a queer, brown boy, who writes for the exploration of political identities, and intellectual and emotional intelligence. He’s an editor for Jet Fuel Review, a literary journal based out of Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. He also blogs under the guise