rosary and anal beads. This plan has just one hitch:
Our niche is failing to fit and we try to be
too legit for the genre of pre-pre-writ obit.
We’s the B’ys
I’s the b’y that builds the boat
And I’s the b’y that sails her
I’s the b’y that catches the fish
And brings them home to Liza.
– “I’s the B’y,” a Newfoundland folk song
I.
I’s the b’y who’s a secret Jew
and I’s the b’y who wore an xxs yarmulke.
I’s the b’y who Dad carried on his shoulders
at the beach, and whose face, framed,
hung on his boarding-room wall.
I’s the b’y who was retrieved one day.
I’s the b’y who’s back with his mother
and new scum stepdad. I’s the b’y
fed ketchup sandwiches and knuckle blood,
and the worst part is that I love her.
I’s a b’y who you might call a straight white man
I’s a b’y whose mother tried to crack a rock
over my head at ten because I was fat.
I’s a b’y who left at seventeen
when a beating took my high-pitched hearing,
and then dropped out of high school
’cause there was no bus there from my sister’s.
I’s the b’y who doesn’t know why I get so tan
in the summer that customers call me mulatto.
I’s the b’y flummoxed my frizzy coif wouldn’t
fall flat into hip, long locks in the seventies.
I’s the b’y who was born a few years
after the Holocaust and who never knew
that I didn’t know why I’m this, and this,
and this. I’s the b’y who gave an old bastard
cpr at my post office job today
and I’s the b’y who couldn’t save him.
I’s the b’y you’d see as a false-consciousness
idiot who doesn’t understand my own
experience because I’m too busy attaining
the crass capital required to buy blood
pudding and potatoes, as if your fucking
hummus is a cloud of angel fart descended
from on high, but who you could probably
learn to fetishize if someone told you
I was the union’s vice president and that
I spray-painted placards with stencils
in the lower basement where I rolled
my Belvederes and prepared to strike—
I’s a b’y who had two kids. I’s the b’y
who never told them they’re Jewish-ish.
I’s the b’y who visited the sins everywhere.
I’s hurting. I’s the b’y who died
in my forties before any story shook out.
II.
I’s the b’y that moved away and I’s the b’y
that visits sometimes. I’s the b’y grieving
for the queer metropoles who, hating,
might see nothing but hate in you.
I’s the b’y that moved away to Alberta
but not to Fort Mac. I’s the b’y called dyke
and faggot back to back because I’s the bi
who ain’t a b’y or I’s the dude trying to abide
with me, buying a double Kahlúa
with iced chai, marshmallow buoy.
I’s the b’y who got pounded in the chest
by a seventh grader for being annoying.
I’s the b’y who felt guilty about the green
grapefruit bruise. I’s the b’y who kept it
from Mom ’cause feeling guilty
was my dirty habit.
I’s the b’y who noticed two of my married,
elementary school teachers were fucking
and I’s the b’y who avoided them as much
as possible. I’s the b’y one of them fixated on
the term before she took her sick leave.
I’s the b’y who always knew my dad hated
holidays and I’s the b’y who couldn’t figure
out why. I’s the b’y whose dad had eight(?)
happy Hanukkahs and forty confusing
Christmases that oscillated between parties
of pepperoni and marble cheese trays,
and playing Santa at the fire hall, or picking
any fight he could at home to break up
the gaiety. Now I hold this photo of him
at four in his bowtie and yarmulke, decanter
of Manischewitz by his tent-pole, teenaged
brother—and the I in I’s has always been
the most controversial pronoun.
I’s the b’y who can’t sleep in Vancouver
and I’s the b’y who feels unentitled to write
about my uncanny coast. I’s the b’y who
fucking does it anyway because it turns out
that tea was caffeinated and today was
the seventh grey day of clichéd rain.
I’s the b’y leaning east like a flower
that can’t reach the window. Godless
waters and abandoned mines, this place
is hardly the molten core of hegemony,
even with these mixed metaphors
which is not to abdicate responsibility,
but is to say that the salt of the earth