Rainbow Underwear
I’m not sure what the link
between my underwear
and God’s promise
to not flood the earth again
should be.
I imagine dozens of my underwear
falling from the sky.
On Noah’s Ark all the animals
and Noah and his family would
put on the rainbow underwear
and thank God for his promises.
Collectively his ship
was the first homosexual cruise.
(My Facebook ads tell me
there are now at least several
cruises of that sort).
In Spanish “Rainbow”
is arco iris which means
Arc of Iris—the Greek Goddess
sending messages between
our world and the Gods.
I imagine Iris making underwear,
sewing them from beams of
prism light. She doesn’t know
what significance the colors
might have to humans but she
knows that she has to make them
and that she has to work
before the clouds suck all
the color out with their gray.
Laying on my bed in only
my rainbow underwear
I see more pairs falling
outside the window. In the yard
I collection them, folding them
neat in my drawer.
Sometimes I have
a dick but not always—
sometimes it gets lost
in the beams of color.
I want to love the small
tunnels of myself—I want
quiet genitals that ask
for nothing but light.
I want to wear rainbow underwear
everyday and come home to
my room where I can take
off whatever skin I’ve made
and lay in patterns of color.
I want a bouquet of hues,
a bundle of daze,
all my garments to give
into a rainbow and
I don’t want to know
what the Gods are saying.
Robin Gow’s poetry has recently been published in POETRY, The Gateway Review, and tilde. He is a graduate student and adjunct professor at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets and Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. He is an out and proud bisexual transgender man passionate about LGBT issues.