I'm Oliver Baez Bendorf and this poem is "Details as Revelations" by Rane Arroyo.  Rane Arroyo died in 2010 and I only came to his work a few years ago and it has been such a joy to have his voice as company with me since then. He was a gay Puerto Rican poet and playwright who lived in Chicago and then Ohio, so our backgrounds have some similarities.

Details as Revelations

It's my turn to buy the condoms.
The cashier blushes at the possibilities
we've been conquering.  I also buy

bleach, a toy mouse for the cat, underwear
for you to take off me.  We don't talk
about a future.  The street shines with

mannequins in rhinestone.  We walk
as if just friends.  We stop at Big Books
and there is a sale on literary critics,

half-off.  You know before foreplay
there is foreplay, the mind's turn to 
ride shotgun.  We end up at Pearlia's

for a happy hour populated by extras
from Dracula: The Musical.  Off-off-off
Broadway isn't a real neighborhood.

CNN is overthrown by the jukebox.  
We compare passports, gods, and shoe
deals.  You want to be seen.  With me!

I'm not sure why.  We talk about nothing
as if it's everything.  We order a last round
to hurry back to my room, to a happiness.