The Ballad of a Boy I Knew, by Misha Solomon

 

I knew a boy, in days bygone
Days like those the Bard called salad
I knew a boy who knew me not
Knew not I would write this ballad 

Although the boy knew need and want
His wants and needs were ill-defined
He did, however, like to please
You want or need? He didn’t mind 

I knew this boy in Edinbur-
gh — he pronounced it wrong back then
Staring at a man mosaic
Getting replies from one in ten 

(Back home he was spooked by Grindr
But traveling he could overlook
The seedy nature of the app
Desperate as he was to hook 

Up.) Finally, a freckled man
Replied “U2” to “hey you’re hot”
The man sent pics of varied parts
Off our boy went to chez the Scot 

The Scot knew his own wants and needs
His barren flat, his full control
He demanded our young traveler
Treat him as no more than a hole 

Back at home the boy was haunted
By the Scot’s post-coital reply:
“That’s it?” The boy did not ever
Want to let down another guy 

And so some sunny afternoon
He found an older man in need
Of someone without agency
In whom to place his shaft and seed 

The man’s apartment was quite sparse
A single lamp, the walls all bare
The straightest porn emanating
From the large TV’s ghastly glare 

Our boy took on the Scottish role
His mouth agape, his ass ajar
And though the man seemed satisfied
The boy did find it quite bizarre 

That this man and the Scot, the both
Lived in spaces without decor
Without flowers, even dead ones
                                    Left to wilt, their petals fallen
                                                                        Left because the note they came with
Read “for my love, whom I adore” 

Our boy and I thought back to the Scot’s
“That’s it?” which seemed now, in hindsight,
Not a complaint the boy had come
Too fast, but a larger quandary,
                                                            an insight:
                                                                                    “Is that all there is?” 

Our boy and I remembered that
The second man had asked the boy
If he wanted anything, needed anything
(the bathroom,
                        a glass of water,
                                                    a tissue,
                                                                  his number,
                                                                                      directions,
                                                                                                        an Uber,
                                                                                                                       to come)
Before he left — the boy said no 

If he said yes they could have chatted
One’s hair a mess, one’s moustache matted
About their parents or the weather
He learned it didn’t matter whether 

He got off or was the gotten
The taste or tingle fast forgotten
If he wasn’t getting what he needed
He could leave a whole town seeded 

                                                                        And still — “that’s it?”

And sex is good and great and grand
And go fuck hard! And go get rammed!
The boy could be a dom, a pig
(The boy was me, there’s no more jig)
But in Scotland or at home
All I wanted were the flowers 

The place to judge isn’t ours
Perhaps the Scot was sated
Perhaps the older man was too
But I wasn’t, I just didn’t mind
And so I left the boy behind

Misha Solomon is a poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. He is the author of two chapbooks, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020) and Full Sentences (Turret House Press, 2022), and his work has recently appeared in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Arc, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, PRISM international, and Riddle Fence. His debut full-length collection is forthcoming with Brick Books in 2026.