I GREW-UP BRONX

and brown
and stingy
like paper cuts.
My zip code
was a garbage can.
Felix fucked me
against the steel
subway car
in a slum yard he was signing in
that night and I was somewhere
between a thumb
& forefinger and
I don't know nothin
about cumming but he did
cause my fingers dripped
with him & I never did
go home
cept to bury my own self
as winter sat
on my knee
and all the graves
whistled at me
in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE POPE DOES RIO

His Holiness came
to the beaches
of Rio
and the favelas
too. He touched
us all,
especially me,
when he put his holy hand
on my sinner's head
while my daughter
gave a blowjob
in the other room
to a man
she doesn't
know, while
two of his friends
waited.

I felt
truly blessed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013