Steve’s Bed

Pink Floyd’s Animals
drones through a thin
dreamless sleep I keep
waking from to see the
quartz lock’s molten
glow on Steve’s dresser
pierce the dark like Vulcan’s
torch lit over the city.
The sheets are dark satin.
I’m in my boxers with
my back to Steve, in need
and afraid. The lulling
acoustic’s punctured like
a deflated lung with electric
dread, like the eternal
last lingering of a trip.
Pig grunt. Bleating. A one-
hitter plugged with shwag.
It only takes a little, Steve
likes to say, closing his eyes
and singing a bar, each
Hammond octave a decade
long. “And when you lose
control,” Gilmour sings,
“you’ll reap the harvest
you have sown.” And remember
this bed, cherished among
troubled boys like a parent’s,
taking a hit before lying
back, a sip of his sweet tea—
he who never turned you out,
you, who never let him.