Between the bridge and the river 
he falls through 
a huge portion of night; 
it is not as if falling

is something new. Over and over 
he slipped into the gulf
between what he knew and how 
he was known. What others wanted 

opened like an abyss: the laughing 
stock-clerks at the grocery, women 
at the luncheonette amused by his gestures.
What could he do, live 

with one hand tied 
behind his back? So he began to fall 
into the star-based section 
of night between the trestle 

and the water because he could not meet 
a little towns demands, 
and his earrings shone and his wrists 
were as limp as they were.

I imagine he took the insults in 
and made of them a place to live; 
we learn to use the names 
because they are there, 

familiar furniture; faggots 
was the bed he slept in, hard, 
but simple somehow, 
queer something sharp


but finally useful, a tool, 
all the jokes a chair, 
stiff-backed to keep the spine straight, 
a table, a lamp. And because 

he's fallen for twenty-three years, 
despite whatever awkwardness 
his flailing arms and legs assume 
he is beautiful 

and like any good diver 
has only an edge of fear 
he transforms into grace.
Or else he he is not afraid, 

and in this way climbs back 
up the ladder of his fall, 
out of the river into the arms 
of the three teenage boys 

who hurled him from the edge—
really boys now, afraid,
their fathers’ cars shivering behind them, 
headlights on—and tells them 

it's all right that he knows 
they didn't believe him 
when he said he couldn’t swim, 
and blesses his killers 

in the way that only the dead 
can afford to forgive.