Bury It

Sax (Madness) continues to tell a story of the gay body, both historical and personal, in this sophomore effort, winner of the 2017 James Laughlin Award. The historic is embodied via narratives passed down from those who survived the AIDS crisis. This fear, these death rituals connected to sex, inform Sax’s personal mythology. “[H]ow can we bury the hatchet / when it always ends up in my back,” he asks, echoing a bodily pain that is inseparable from pleasure. The sex here leans more toward Thanatos than Eros—“paired animal bodies/ floating & bloated with salt.” In Sax’s creed, intimacy cannot be disentangled from carrion and disease. Unprotected sex, for example, gets compared to uncooked meat and the harmful bacteria potentially lurking inside. Sax’s homoeroticism relies not on the surface of skin, but what’s beneath: the horror of raw meat and red blood. This is not to say there’s no enjoyment in his words; the pleasures in Sax’s poems derive from his sonic mastery, as in “Risk” where the phrases “paradox of latex,” “paragon of intimacy,” and “my paramour, my minotaur, my matador flashing his red sword” all play off one another. Such wordsmithing is where Sax is at his best, providing gratification against the relentless obliteration and displeasure that haunts these poems. Agent: Nicholas Ward, NCW Booking. (Sept.)