Wound by Richard Scott

I read Richard Scott’s Soho a couple of years ago, and earlier pamphlet has that same holding of sex openly alongside the whole of life – to talk about being gay without talking about the sex is not to tell truth. There is also religious imagery within the poems that connects for me.

In the blurb it says Richard was born in 1981, which surprises me, it felt like he is writing from a slightly older generation of gay experience than my own.

Test

That’s my son’s birthday

and before she can readjust her face

I catch pity.

I am being asked the inevitable questions:

age, how many lovers, were they from the EU -

thing I tell her, more or less.

She boozes up my elbow bend,

unpeels a fresh bright needle.

I look away to see

the wall with its proud bubble writing

RAINBOW WARRIORS FACING IT TOGETHER

and a pamphlet advertising chastity.

We were careful though

I offer as an apology.

Her syringe begrudgingly fill, splutters,

she draws out leaving a bead of guilty blood

on the crook of my arm.

You’ll know in three hours darling, for better or worse.