Butterfly Nut House

A poem honoring Peter James Conti. This one's by Lynn Procope...beautiful.

As a lead in to this poem, she wrote this on her blog - "This is also for Danny, my love, who lets me cry every time I try to tell him about Peter and who'd never flirted with a man (let alone a gorgeous black Italian gay man who occasionally talked to the voices over his shoulder) until he met Pete but did it cause I said he had to love all my Petes if he wanted me to love him. I appreciate that kind of love. Because of these people, it's all around me. It's not easy, it grows up the wrong way but gets its ass in gear and learns a new thing every day. For all of you even if you never know it. ack! so sappy!"

Butterfly Nut House – in memory of PJC
By Lynne Procope – 1.17.06

We buried you, in a cold snap, during
a transit strike, nothing moving except
under the power or our own energies.

We whispered, a cancer, what made it?
and there grew a fear of our rash rough throats,
everything a threat. We shifted uneasy,

shoulder to shoulder, almost as in love
as we all were in the old days but for
this thrall of absolute ice, we owned

no explanations except perhaps sucrose,
and red wines too sweet for grownups. Peter.
how did we arrive here, without you?

Tonight I write at our old holy place.
The bartender does not know you’re dead,
He gives me free beer; cold benediction.

He begins the list, asks after our circle.
This one still hungry, another married,
the youngest carries tumors; mistaken babies,

the loudest gone to where he can praise
an easier god and you; each time I’m asked,
I forget which words mean that you’re dead;

underweight, 90 lbs when they cracked
the ice bound earth. I have not spoken aloud
since your first call to say, Cancer. Perhaps

your bare back exposed as a scandal and
all your lovely hungry boys. The last thing
I said was, How do I apologize

for letting in the monster that is eating you?
Was it your father’s ministry, his holy,
the cracked closet door, your mother’s deep cough,

or the voices that leached onto your ear?
When you stopped listening, did they migrate
south, inhabit your spine? You abdicated

madness. Was that it? You, younger, crazy
more naked, you louder, willing to sing
off key, off beat, all the wrong words.
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