Two Poems
He Called Us Faggots
for Eric Tran
Our new
mutual friend
called the two
of us faggots
in public
outdoors
by the pizza shop
on the street
outside the pizzeria
in the open air—
Our newest
mutual friend
who is hot
called us faggots
all because
I said, What’s that
vegetable?
Why can’t I
remember
the English,
I can only
think of
the French:
haricots verts.
And then
you giggled
so very
much and said,
Green beans!
And he said,
Wow.
The two of you
really are
faggots.
Our friend,
our new
hot and
also
faggot
friend.
last thing, first thing
unencumbered by winter & by winter coats, the bussy rises.
the balls are in everybody’s court. court those balls!
run towards them, yes, even with your injured FOOT
(pronounced FÜT). every day, in every universe, a man
with hot toes has an injured foot, & it’s your job, you know that?
it’s your job to rub out the injury. perhaps you find this strange,
stranger than fiction, but as strange as poetry? hmm i don’t
think so. it’s spring, finally, but do the homophobes
understand that? can they feel the change in the air ? if i had to
choose just one last thing to say, the first thing
that comes to my sweet silly homo noggin is
hate. i hate that we were gay kids in a land of tolerant
bitches who didn’t care people wanted to kill us.
none of you hate homophobia enough & that is why the bussy
is always rising, always shining loudly & saying anusly, look at me, you
little fuckers, none of you get to rub out that hot man’s foot, not
with your tolerance! tolerance is not hot enough! the spring sun!
is not enough! you say, settle for spring! for this nice nice breeze!
& i say, fuck that! give me! hot! faggot! summer! hate hotter!
i love to see people so filled with hate they love me
enough to shut down all that shit-eating garbage-guzzling
bad-for-the-fucking-environment homophobia. hate!
more!!!!! hate boldly, hugely with a torrent of tomatoes
ready to hurl! hate communally, communistly with a big basket
of pomegranates ready to devour! cum to the hate party with
passionfruit juices running down your hate chin. hate fuck the fuck
out of each other!! hate that homophobic uncle & mother & older
brother & college friend & boring lover even harder!!!! hatefully
refuse every hateful thing they say! remain hateful, ungrateful to their faces!!
spit in the face of their good manners, in the fuckface of their politeness, their
i’m just a bit concerned about & could you please tone it down & could you
pass the butter. be a good strong hairy hater. blast your glorious silky pubes
right into homophobia’s rotten core. use your powerful bush for
all of homokind. & i swear you’ll be blessed with
the sweatiest manfeet, the bussiest bussy juice,
the most porniest mustache, the regalest drag queens & their
most shocking costume changes, the best post-buttsex
nachos a faggot could ever dream of, wouldn’t you love that,
because we would love that for you, too
Chen Chen and Sam Herschel Wein are poets who love to frolic, collaborate, and eat dim sum together. They are the authors of two chapbooks, GESUNDHEIT! (Glass Poetry, 2019) and the forthcoming LOVE THAT FOR US (& Change, 2026). They co-edit Underblong, which they co-founded, in their non-cohabitating co-creative lives. They have both published a lot of their own stuff too, but that’s for a different bio.
