His Final Shot

I regret the future
unphotographed.

I had visions
of more:

architecture, taxidermy, the projects,
Chinatown butchers, shrines in Mexico City

and Naples, Istanbul’s spice market men sipping tea
mustaches wet on the rim, leather daddies

bloodied in Berlin, Paris heroin hustlers, smoking
limbs on the Ganga’s shores, I always return

to the dark gods. In my youth,
I bought a one-way ticket

to Hades, handcuffs and cum all the way,
and now my train’s pulling into the station,

and I want
one more picture.

– For Robert Mapplethorpe

Greg Casale is an award-winning writer and journalist who has written for the Washington Blade, Lambda Literary and the Phoenix New Times, among other publications. Poetry publications include Origins Literary Journal, Bayou Magazine, Arkana, HIV Here & Now and Under A Warm Green Linden.