Ghost poem #3—The other side of the glass

 

I was working a sausage sizzle fundraiser

on the day George Michael died. His ghost

sat with me in my car while I scrolled through

social media exploding with grief and links

to his greatest hits. George took my hand

and told me not to cry before asking why I

smelt of burning flesh. Are we in hell? he asked.

Lower Hutt, I replied. My sunburnt neck

pulsed with residual heat or perhaps it was

the spark of a memory of watching him

perform at Sydney Mardi Gras in 2010 flanked

by shirtless cowboys, leather daddies and

policemen in latex pants. I think about it

all the time. Every now and then I crave to

feel that night again, slick trepidation running

down my spine every time I locked eyes with

another guy, hoping my smile would be returned

favourably. A certain beat can unlock the body

heat of that glittering night and all the other nights

of careless yearning since then tumbling

from limb-crushing dancefloor into the crisp

3AM air with his voice still ringing in my ears:

You’ve got to go to the city.

You’ve got to reach the other side of the glass.

Some of us are neither sunburst nor shade

but a symptom of formative summers caught

somewhere in between like hands pressed against

the edge of the rest of our lives. The glass was

my own making and all my future wonders were

one swift and decisive thought away. I wrote all

my desires in my breath for anyone to read them.

 

Chris Tse

 

 

Chris Tse is the author ofHow to be Dead in a Year of Snakes and HE’S SO MASC. He is co-editing an anthology of LGBTQIA+/Takatāpui New Zealand writers due to be published by Auckland University Press in 2021.