By Jay Kidd

When my father and I had the “Dad, you know I’m gay”
conversation he slowly leaned his heavy ex-football
player frame back into his black leather lounge chair,
cocked his head to one side and after swilling yet
another mouthful of scotch said, “you know, if I hadn’t
gone to boarding school I probably would’ve been gay
too.” It was late and we were alone in his bachelor executive
apartment.  The languid southern California night air seeped
in through the sliding screen doors inviting conversation
and confession and suddenly we were equals.
Decades later at his 75th birthday the big guy now shrunken
and limping but still moving forward like a linebacker,
introduces me to his old fraternity brothers and I can tell
by that certain glint in their eyes that they were
once in love with him.

Jay Kidd’s poetry has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Burningword, and Ruminate Magazine.  He is a 2014 Shortlist Poetry Prize winner for Fish Publishing’s international writing contest, was the winner of Ruminate’s McCabe Prize for Poetry in 2013, nominated for inclusion in the 2012 edition of the anthology Best New Poets, and he is a past and current Pushcart Prize nominee.  Jay studies the craft of poetry at The Writers Studio in New York City and he works as a Certified Life Coach.