Dangling like a hooked nightcrawler, a stolen
rosary—onyx black, glass beads

like rat eyes, a jagged little cross. My aunt’s,
Tommy said, She thinks she lost it. We were

naked, our clothes strewn across his room:
rusting tools, slack-spined books, loose

change, so much we could’ve bought
a pack of condoms if we scrounged.

We didn’t know what we were. Just friends,
behind locked doors, excavating lust.

Tommy snapped the string to a single strand
his soft cock bowing its head—

then tossed the beads to me. We weren’t
religious, but they felt heavy, warm, more

than themselves. I had to wet each one with spit
then push, hard, until his body swallowed what

I fed him. Bead after bead, passing through
his hole. Bead after bead, slippery

as thought. Tommy took it all, stayed quiet,
that delicate cross knocking against his entrance.

We could’ve stopped there, his body stuffed
with prayer, my fingers slick with their own work,

but the job wasn’t done. I tugged, gentle
as a lover, until that first bead popped free,

glossy with the light of his bed lamp.
Oh God, he moaned, a glimmer

of irony, his face buried in a pillow.
When I eased another out, he tossed

his beautiful head. Oh God, he said again,
with force. I think he might have meant it.