DREAM BOY

The so-called straight boy vomits
his story over free drinks while
sympathetic ears grope for his crotch.
He knows the story by heart.
It's a sordid tale of suppressed love
and sad disguises. Their been-there T-shirts
glow in ultra violet lies
and their eyes
burn with nostalgia and regret
- like sad mothers' eyes.
He likes, afterwards, when snogging
in the darkness
to grope in their pockets
for the small change and change
into the child
they'd all like to be,
the one he could never become.

(c) Alan David Pritchard