By Marcus Stringer

Place the charge. Give the verdict.
Sentence me of sensuality, of abomination.

I don’t care. It is an honor.

Is it not a gift from God to behold beauty in another man’s eyes?
And how deliciously inviting are a male’s sweet lips?

Let my abomination stand,
if like you with your wife,
I with my man promise to love
and cherish in mind body and soul.

Let my flaunting endure,
for I will walk hand in hand with the apple of my eye
I will kiss his lips and be held in his embrace.
I will laugh for him and sing his praises.

How I covet our special nights
nights far more sensual and pulsing than most.
We’ll begin with dinner, perhaps with candles or without
maybe after or even before an argument.
The stress and strain is heavy in the air of our home.

We pout, going to our separate ends of the house -
until a hot bath is made. Sweet-smelling incense is burned
candles-lit and the lights turned off.
I invite him, or he invites me.

Our anger will not be taken into the night.
Here "sinning", and giving thanks blend to express love
yes, we give again our promised love through our bodies.

My body and soul hungers for him
just as my lungs thirst for air.
He is air, as only he can be. He is my air
and I breath him sexually,
yes I breath his man-sex as I do his soul.

Judge us guilty!
We will honor and elevate ourselves
above the fray, and above the crowd.

Judge us perverts!
We will lift ourselves up
where we belong – among the stars!

And if we go to your god’s ‘fiery furnace’
in our soul-covenant of love
Perhaps our God will come and save us.
But if not…