"Ode to the Profoundly Gay Night We Just Had" by Chen Chen

Ode to the Profoundly Gay Night We Just Had

          Let’s start with the way I slid my chair
          to sit right beside you 
          for 2 generous scoops of house-made sorbet 

that we were definitely 
too full for, but it was our favorite restaurant, the anniversary 
was our 12th, 

          so our shoulders kissed as our spoons 
          clinked in that mango-blessed bowl, like dancers 
          bumping into each other, but so sweetly, because that was, 

in fact, part of the dance. & then, 
back home, in our bed, there was the sweet & very 
sticky way you finished 

          working my dick 
          with the fleshjack I got you 6 Christmases or was it 7 
          birthdays ago, this toy you affectionately call 

The Can, & which sometimes I see 
taken apart for cleaning, all its parts 
hanging out beside my conditioner 

          on a little ledge in the shower, 
          like it’s a new type of loofah, & not what I just came in, 
          not what you then

slowly, delicately slid off still-hard me
before sliding right onto mega-hard you, 
my cum still in it, 

          my cum your lube
          as we intertwined hands on The Can, & kissed, 
          & you fucked, thrusted up into my, our 

pushing down, fucking back, & kisses, &
a long shivering happy
sigh that became 

          laughter, yours, mine, I don’t know
          when I’ve ever been gayer 
          to be gay. I wish I’d taken a video of us 

for porny posterity, for horny later, for a lovely
companion to the picture
the waitress took at the restaurant, 

          the one where the bowl was scraped clean 
          & we smiled big, knowing our mouths were not, 
          were far from done.

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Audio: Chen Chen reads “Ode to the Profoundly Gay Night We Just Had”

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Chen Chen’s third book of poems, Quintessential Earthly Activities, is forthcoming from Boa Editions in spring 2027. His two previous collections are Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. He has also written six chapbooks, most recently Love That For Us, a collaboration with Sam Herschel Wein, and a book of craft essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God, forthcoming from Noemi Press at the end of the year. He lives in Rochester, New York and teaches for the MFA program at New England College.

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