FCA Doughnuts
Mike Piero
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Suggestive donuts, purified bottled water, and coffee
for the lanky, balding Mr. Burnes marked that space
of early morning fellowship my freshman year of high
school where I—and a few others, I suspect—worked
to pray our nearly already silent gay away.
In high school trailers of desert air and peeling suburban
skin, Mr. Burnes in sixth period health class taught us about
sex through a series of grainy photographs passed around
between us of venereal diseases: gonorrhea garnered the
loudest disgust, though he taught us to fear HIV the most.
I liked to balance the donuts—which I preferred to spell,
doughnuts—on my finger during the meetings, moving
them in different positions and trying to forget the things
I was supposed to forget:
Explorations with friends’ bodies
with no respect to gender under the splinter-ridden and rotting
deck on my elementary school playground; or the middle school
bus-rides where I touched a friend’s marshmallow penis, and he touched
mine; or in high school when I watched a pirated copy of Brokeback Mountain
on a hacked Xbox with friends,
and it sent me into
a manic spin
for reasons buried by months of prayer
in those early school meetings for athletes,
not that I ever played a sport, except twice
a day with my own misunderstood and fearful body.
I’m inclined to write that to this day I have no taste for
doughnuts, but that would be a lie: I can’t get enough of
those pliant, powdered holes that still grip ever so snugly
around any one of my wanting, prayerless fingers.
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Mike Piero, Ph.D. (he/him) is a bisexual writer and professor in Northeast Ohio, where he teaches courses in writing, literature, the humanities, and game studies. His poetry and stories have appeared in J Journal: New Writing on Justice, Impost: A Journal of Creative and Critical Work, Midway Journal, Moveable Type, and The Sandy River Review. His debut novel, Rogue Burnout, is represented by Trident Media Group and seeking a home. He is working to finish his debut poetry collection, Midwest Secrets. More at www.mikepiero.org.
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