On observing a queer bird walking the verge on 37th St,  

​dividing Greenwood Cemetery and an MTA facility

​— 4/6/25 — ​

By Liam McLean

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Don Cherry

By Liam McLean

If today I passed him — 
warm from heroin, humming

on a stair — 

I’d turn my beat, young eyes away.




Hope his heaven’s
sudden as mine.



I’m lucky. We live
in different days. Heaven’s his
trumpet rains, it suns copper cake.

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A Week, Awakening

By Liam McLean

Got caught in a searing,
    pretty stare:
Friday colored amazed, curled under him.


Saturday found me a fairy
at her side: wanting him.


On the floor: the next Thursday: he and I
were lying down.


And she was sick
at home.


Trawling, through one another’s why backs, large fishhooks.
And the swing of our whys kept
    fantasy time.


I thought, “We all do this to one another, all the time.”
Then I — my eyes opened — I realized the time.

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​Liam McLean lives in Brooklyn, New York and is pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at the City College of New York. His poetry has also appeared in The Gravity of the Thing and dadakuku. You can find him on Instagram at @daydreamsforthepeople.