Freddie
︎︎︎ Will Russo
︎ OCT 12, 2021
Sweet skinny boy
really put on
a show. Out of
Zanzibar, theatrics
took him steady
west—never could stop
his fleeing. Fluent,
flaunting hairless
shoulders, skintight
denim and torso, he
coaxed the tenor
of a virile genre—huge
jaw and extra teeth
open to a sky of
octaves. Frame a thin
sail. Boy could really
move those hips. Freddie—
all moustache and
fortune—you never sang
of men. How many
queens denied your
throat, your flung
voice? Whatever you
were, you weren’t
just a fag, a shaking
vibrato, a ricochet
harmonizing solely
with itself—and now I know
and now I know
and now I know
and now I know that you can hear me
really put on
a show. Out of
Zanzibar, theatrics
took him steady
west—never could stop
his fleeing. Fluent,
flaunting hairless
shoulders, skintight
denim and torso, he
coaxed the tenor
of a virile genre—huge
jaw and extra teeth
open to a sky of
octaves. Frame a thin
sail. Boy could really
move those hips. Freddie—
all moustache and
fortune—you never sang
of men. How many
queens denied your
throat, your flung
voice? Whatever you
were, you weren’t
just a fag, a shaking
vibrato, a ricochet
harmonizing solely
with itself—and now I know
and now I know
and now I know
and now I know that you can hear me
Will Russo is a Chicago-based poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Watershed Review, Salamander, Berkeley Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Russo received a 2019 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Poetry Editor for Great Lakes Review.