Before George Michael made visits to johns
For jollies chic in a cheeky dance song,
On our island, dozen after dozen,
Entrapped men behind stall doors had fun in
The Village Shopping Mall. I watched every
Evening, the square-jawed anchorman reveal
Names, air photos, clips of the men in cuffs,
Blab till the weather with neutered disgust.
A note passed in class outed my neighbour
In the next row, marked him as a nephew.
It snowballed to a shit-knocking at lunch.
He wore a scarlet scrap of his uncle’s brunt.
Joe Bishop
Joe Bishop, recipient of a Newfoundland & Labrador Arts & Letters award for poetry, is a Canadian poet who has had work appear in journals such as The Puritan, Plenitude Magazine, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and many more. He is featured on the League of Canadian Poets’ website. His first collection, Dissociative Songs, was published in 2021 by Frog Hollow Press. He lives in the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland.