Soft lights and chatter

spill through

the open door,

they draw me in.

I look beyond

familiar faces and glimpse

 

two young boys on a sofa.

their limbs intertwined –

a tangle of lurex thighs

and spangled lycra vests.

 

I can almost

imagine the eroticism

of Matisse’s odalisques

and patterned wall hangings.

Here though, flower stickers

placed to enliven bare walls

parody that reverie of

Moorish exoticism. Opulence.

 

The scene flickers between

actual and imaginary.

I think of Whitman’s phrase

We two boys clinging together,

of  Hockney’s later

eponymous paintings of

Californian boys in white socks.

 

The two boys on the sofa untangle.

One, a neighbour, moves towards me

to place the requisite kiss

which I return in like manner.

 

Picture: Blue Nude by Matisse www.artfund.org