Alex Dimitrov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1984. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Together and By Ourselves (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), and Begging for it, (Four Way Books, 2013). He is the founder of Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon that has hosted critics and poets such as Daniel Mendelsohn and John […]
I need an image to begin like the city needs another face thrown to the pavement, kneeled on and stained. Hell’s Kitchen knows how to welcome a stranger. Wilde ones, let us forgive the bitter pill delivered with each finger shoved down. Forgive tasting Judas. Forgive nothing. Here is the […]
It hung from his neck in a kind and devastating way— hidden under his shirt and apron, wait staff uniform then blazer, when he finally found a good desk job. Walking through the living room after work he’d slowly loosen the knot of his tie, teasing it with his fingers and unbuttoning that top […]
A man, like the market, can surprise you— study him carefully while he uses your face as a mirror, a screen. When he unbuttons his shirt he is teaching you kindness and ruin he learned from his father— leaving a wife and two kids, the crash at the office, for a […]
And then I asked to kneel down with the pack— to quiet the death choir which hissed through my teeth. My mouth—I let him lash it. And watched while his panic slowly became us. The seventh time I threw myself at him something else took me.
Although I please when taken like a pistol, cool in the mouth and without aftertaste— he kindly asks to have me by the neck. How much, and would you like to come with me to Rome? Or by the water somewhere? Outside the Vatican— who wouldn’t drown there? Yes, the saints […]
The last time I saw him he wore another life with the tie I gave him in spring. In the space between his cufflink and wine glass I tried to collect myself— was it Paris, or perfume on my wrists? You don’t want to mix emotions with wine, he said. You lose […]
Already the businessman on Broadway forgives himself for what will happen between him and the boy who stops to ask for a cigarette, his face illuminating like an icon’s above the clean strike of the match. Tonight, love isn’t enough for anyone out here. Across the street the blonde gives his body […]