Junior Year | T. Dallas Saylor
He hunkers down on straight boys, groans & grins & throws his eyes to one last summer evening. Our eyes glance to the corner, the body’s work unfinished, a ceramic pot on a round table spouting mouthes. We kneel between book stacks, one thumb in a modernist myth. He starts to pound like a metro. On top of the bedside lamp, an unfinished term paper dimples its muscles & glows from residual heat. I pin it down with a Sharpie & tattoo on, I haven’t been a girl since Christmas. There—now it’s fantasy. He pushes something down the slats, something about rivers & moonlight, a fire hazard haiku. It won’t be over through blinds onto our lucid fingers. The sheets rain-dance into being: everything needs the right words but won’t be. The streetlight will fall while I dig around for the stuff to make animals. It won’t be clear.
Dr. T. Dallas Saylor (he/they) holds a PhD from Florida State University and an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. He is the author of three poetry collections: Starfish (Glass Lyre Press, 2025), Holy Little Masochisms (Pen & Leaf Press, forthcoming 2027), & Dragon Year (Word Works, forthcoming 2027), & his work is on Twitter: @dallas_saylor. He currently lives in West Virginia.