Francisco Márquez

Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

The Bulge

by Francisco Márquez

Let me tell you of that first encounter. Summer. I am thirteen.
My father takes me to see his friend the repairman fixing
the roof of a home. We drive into alleys that narrow between
houses miles from where we lived, and I am bored, accustomed,
as children are, to do as I am told, wear what I’m told to wear.
This was before the age of choice, before I picked at the shape
of my clothes and, imageless, held no faith on which to rest
my suffering, until that Sunday in August when the heavy sun
threw its heat on the tops of houses and handymen undressed
to sweat a little better. When we arrive, the driveway is mostly dirt,
as was the chest of the man with the name I don’t remember,
mixed with paint on a trail of fur that lowered to his hairier belly,
near his hips where he hung an undershirt tucked at the edge
of his jeans, by the belt that sagged with the implements
of his labor, and this new desire, so much like a ghost, turned
recognizable by a shift in the air, as yet unannounced before
my eyes descended to the bulge, which grew in heft like God,
or the mountain on which it’s said He resides, where Moses
received the Holy Commandments knowing well all the pain
they would bring. Maybe faith is the risk to know you are
but an instrument. Let it be with me, I say, according to You.

About the Author

Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. His work has been featured in the Yale Review, the Brooklyn Rail, the Slowdown podcast, and the Best American Poetry anthology. He has received support from the Tin House Writer’s Workshop, The Poetry Project, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a 2019-2020 Poetry Fellow. He works and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Queer Poem a Day

Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L’Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.