Obit.
by Jim Elledge
All his long life, his dreams blocked the view—
fortune, happiness, love.
Instead, he mastered two languages
other than his parents’ gobbledygook
and wrote sonnets as destructive
as the wind. Faith escaped him.
His DNA shouted,
“No fucking way” and threw
its hands up in disgust. By the end,
he embraced his unbelief. He died backed
into a corner of the universe. (Not a soul noticed.)
Jim Elledge’s most recent collection of poetry is Bonfire of the Sodomites (2017), about the arson of the UpStairs Lounge. He’s received two Lambda Literary Awards, one for my book-length poem A History of My Tattoo (2006) and the other for Who’s Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (2012), which he co-edited with David Groff. His other recent books include Almost Famous, a novel (2023) and An Angel in Sodom: Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay Rights Movement (2022).
