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| U.S. national-security officials have ordered a Chinese company to sell gay-dating app Grindr, citing the risk that the personal data it collects could be exploited by Beijing to blackmail individuals with security clearances, according to people familiar with the situation. —Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2019. Graphic credit: Hong Kong Free Press. |
Because faggotry is still a cold war
causing hard glares and opportunism,
whereas heterosexuals can happily keyswop;
their loins are tinder looking for a match.
So their marriage breaks up, so what?
Rather that than exploitation, nothing
to be ashamed of, unlike the down low
romeos exposing torsos, headless homos
send a message: the unveiling is a risk,
each cropped angle is complicit.
We cannot trust a man
whose flesh is pliable
to not be ruled
by its kneading.
Mark Ward is the author of Circumference (Finishing Line Press, 2018). His work has appeared in The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Cordite, Assaracus, Softblow, and many more. He is the founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry. He is currently working on his first full-length collection, Nightlight.