"Matinee Showing of The 300 at the AMC 22 Homestead, PA" by James Allen Hall

Matinee Showing of The 300 at the AMC 22 Homestead, PA

My boyfriend leaves a chair between us: the fag seat, 
he says, laughing at my scowl. We call a truce 
as the movie starts—someone else's war: Leonidas's 
squadron of musclebears versus the Persians, 
commanded by kohl-eyed Xerxes, an oiled display 
in a macrame jockstrap. Girl, even the celluloid 
is rolling its eyes up and down that body. 
Xerxes looks at Leonidas like a bottom scorned, 
but Leo marches his bronzed horde forward 
to reclaim a beachhead which will host future 
tea-dances, summer bear-bellied beer busts. 
Down our row, the battalion of fratboys growl, 
roused by the loinclothed choreography,
bloody chests grinding like they're in a movie 
called Spermopylae instead. You know the way Christ 
queer-baits you to eyefuck his rock-hard abs? 
I want to ask them, the movie over, out 
in the parking lot, but one chucks his soda 
at our chariot, naming us the stereo-ancient slurs. 
Closet cases, I say, pent up after hours of fuckless gay porn. 
Brandon blames me: You could detail the homoerotic 
contents of a mayonnaise jar, demands I pay 
for his car wash. Our battle is back on. One of us 
is a coward, one a dictator. One is happy to live
in filth, never washing a dish; one is intent on
making the other his personal slave. One leaves 
while one sleeps. Another Sparta was always 
waiting. Every movie turns true eventually. 
The men who come to cart the Coliseum 
of cardboard boxes away wear coveralls.
Each box they handle is labeled, my ex's name 
built with thick permanent marker, my script 
embellished by the flounciest pink hearts 
my hand can marshal. It's been years since 
I cried at the end of any movie.

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Audio: James Allen Hall reads “Matinee Showing of The 300 at the AMC 22 Homestead, PA”

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Photo Credit: Marco Giugliarelli

James Allen Hall is the author of two books of poetry and a book of lyric essays: Now You’re the Enemy (University of Arkansas, 2008), Romantic Comedy (Four Way Books, 2023), and I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well (Cleveland State Poetry Center, 2017). They are the recipient of two Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts as well as fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Maryland State Arts Council. They have received awards from Lambda Literary, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Along with the poet Aaron Smith, they cohost Breaking Form: A Poetry and Culture Podcast. Find them online at www.jamesallenhall.com

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