Faggots

All day in my head I say the name for them.
I kneel and take                   thick as pipe      the bundle
of sticks.                 In the sugarhouse                    I feed
the furnace.              I tend the heat, deep kiss
of woodsmoke up my neck.                Concentrating
the sap over hours.         Paring the water,         pooling the sugar,
reducing its form         to make it sweeter.        I blow
on the spoon                 before I swallow and still burn         my tongue.
When I was a dyke,
men disgusted me,        their roughness. The hemlock logs,
sawed and split,                stacked into cords. What pleasure
there was in being tied                 to certainty, lashed
to an identity,                 to be legible                to those whom I desire.
Sticky at the finish,                dripping in strands,
the syrup golden and delicate.
At the boiler’s core,
like a season I'm distant from,        a lightness—the coals
bright as peaches

Ira Goga is a poet and biochemist whose work has been published in Foglifter, Muzzle Magazine, DIAGRAM and elsewhere. They were named winner of the Academy of American Poetry's Most Promising Young Poet Award in 2020. They currently live on unceded Western Abenaki land.