"Finistere, 1952" by jason b. crawford

Finistere, 1952

       after Paul Cadmus 
            after Jim Whiteside 

There were men laughing and men leaning 
on the thin whisper of the wooden beams. 
Men frolicking as they travel the iridescent space 
between their homes. Men spit shining each other’s 
dirt-worn shoes until they could finally make out 
their own stupid grins in between the leather’s grain. 
Men coaxing each other into the women they would 
soon brag to their friends about. Men in love 
with the water’s curves and tendencies for violence. 
Men that smelled of oil and men that smell of forever- 
sweet baguettes. Men that tested the bricks' wavering 
strength. Men on bicycles–on small, insignificant
clouds, on to the next falsehood they can fashion
with their mouths; there were men so thirsty that even
the ocean could not quell them. Yet, still they sat
by the water, until their thirst would eventually
drown them, or, like the sea of men before them, 
they would finally sprout their gills.

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“Finistere, 1952” by Paul Cadmus

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Audio: jason b. crawford reads “Finistere, 1952”

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jason b crawford is a queer poet. They are the author of YEET! (Omnidawn, 2025), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Poetry, and Year of the Unicorn Kidz (Sundress Publications, 2022). A Lambda Literary Fellow, crawford was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Lansing, Michigan.

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