In the shadows of the plastic neon signs
Where the middle class pretty boys
And local college queens
Down Day-Glo shooters;
Sipping Cosmos watered down
With soap opera tears.

Where they patch their weekly broken hearts
In the blinding disco lights;
Strutting to an auto-tuned synthetic rhythm
To drown out their bad romances.

Outside
In the shadows of the polished plastic neon signs,
Sits one stone-broke pale-faced lean half-fag
Strumming a battered Dobro
Moaning out “Death Letter Blues”
At the news
Of another brother gone.

–Walter Beck

• Posted in: GLBT poetry