Kevin Bertolero

Preface

Inspired by correspondence between poet Maurice Kenny (1929-2016) and novelist Willard Motley (1909-1965)

In 1964, Will made suggestions.
He placed at my hands undeveloped
                      little manuscripts.

At first I felt bad, too realized—
and in error, I advised him to forget it all.

Then he asked me a second time,
          his rejected heart. He was trying to say
   something, though fumbling,

and the vibrations were beginning to reach me.
I take it that same way he did—
                      now, in the dark.

   We would say the same words
& he couldn’t help but cry, that his texts
                                              were understood.

I think of him now
                                  while on my back

of what we were and how little I was ready
          to say in my Brooklyn Heights apartment.

Will loved boys with their fingers
                                              on his back.

My time is dedicated to his still hands,
to the quiet rooms in his pink house,
to the hills overlooking Mexico City

                                              we loved so much.

Kevin Bertolero is a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire. He is the founding editor of Ghost City Press and is the associate director for the Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference. His poems and essays have appeared in Drunken Boat, Peach Mag, OUT/CAST, Tenderness Lit, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @KevinBertolero.

malasaña.

Kevin Bertolero

Preface