My Response To Justin Chin's Poem

Here I have made a response to Justin Chin's poem Hypothermia. On Justin's website, http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Justin/ Justin scratches other people's work out and makes poems of his own out of it. So here you go, enjoy!

Hypothermia The World (I made the new title)
[for Adam]

Stranded mountaineers have been known to lie
in the slit bellies of their pack animals,
crouched in the vapor of warm blood
to prevent hypothermia; the human body being
that frightfully fragile pack
of skin, flesh, organs, bones,
one fierce dip in temperature
and it betrays without even a kiss;

when rescuing cattle trapped
under ice, farmers have been known
to draw warmth from the animals' ears;
that last night I woke with your warm slab
of body next to me, your strong arm
draped heavy over my chest, the piercing,
a metal bar across the lobe of your right ear,
pressing into the back of my neck,

one small touch of the cold night
measured against ambivalence, mixed
emotions. Leaning into your still sleeping
body, I gently fondled your stiff ears, nuzzled
my lips against the stubble of your head,
followed the flicker of your tattoos
as it crossed mine like a game of Snakes
& Ladders; one false move and you fall

down the slippery scaled back of a snake,
back to the start, back to Square One,
to finding your way around the game
of boys pretending to be men and men
never knowing what it ever was like
to be boys, finding where you fit in,
where I fell out; and hearing your voice
on the phone again after all that time,

remembering that one last fling, I know
that a clear and present memory is another

trick of staying warm, another way
to keep holding for that one lucky throw
that will allow me to scramble up a long
sturdy ladder where perhaps we'll find something
definite, real time, hard proof,
apologetically waiting there.