I. Geryon's body
=============
At night his brother's mouth was hot and wet.

"This is night-time," thought Geryon, "This is what people do with their
bodies."
But his body felt very far away.
His brother's mouth made hot red patterns in his mind, spirals
like the hot-plate's burning coil.
It made things hard to think about.

"This is what people do," thought Geryon again, before thought was lost to
brother-touch.
Pressed flat between bed and body,
his small red wings twitched and twitched.

The next day in his autobiography he drew round red smoke.
"Write underneath it," he said to his mother.
"Write underneath it, 'Geryon's body'".

II. Distances
===============
Geryon's brother grew large and tall.
Geryon watched and stayed small as he could.
He liked the distance from his head to the ground,
All parts kept close within that brief red length.

(In the bunk below, his brother's careless sprawl.)

Each morning Geryon would stand before the mirror without his clothes.
"That is Geryon," he thought to himself,
closing fingers round his own thin wrist.
When he stretched up his arms, shadows arced beneath his ribs.

Brother-head rose and peered at him.
"Whatcha doing, shrimp? Checking out your gorgeousity?"

Geryon's wings shivered and folded in upon themselves.
Geryon was beautiful.

III. Herakles
=================
When Herakles came everything changed.
Geryon looked at him and felt a round red "O" of surprise float up
through his inside like a bubble.
When it touched the back of his tongue he spoke.
"Oh," he said aloud, "Hello."

That night Herakles put Geryon's cold hands inside his shirt
and all of Geryon's smallness was lost.
His hidden inside growing rushed out through bones and skin and
up he shot.

"My goodness," laughed his mother at the bare red ankles below his cuffs,
"You need new clothes!"
She bought him new clothes, and new clothes, and new clothes again,
But they couldn't keep up with his wrists and his ankles.

Geryon was dizzy with growth. He missed his smallness, and his feet,
far away at the ends of new long legs.
Herakles laughed and ran hard fingers down his ribs.
"I liked you small," he said, "and I like you big. Now come and show me
*you* like *me*."

"Who's this new kid you're spending all your time with now?" said Geryon's
brother.

At night Geryon tried to fold his new height into his old bed. "This is
Geryon," he said to himself, arms wrapped tight round folded legs. "This is
Geryon. This is my body."

Behind him his wings flexed and spread.

IV. Birthday
==========
It was Geryon's mother who gave him the camera
the day he turned 15.
Geryon raised it to his face and through its small square eye
the world leapt together with sudden significance
each moment framed like a window.

That morning he photographed:

1) His mother's cigarette-smoke halo
2) His brother's long arm reaching
3) His own neat-clawed red feet

Later he added Herakles' sleeping face, full of
careless golden light.

In his autobiography he wrote -

Portrait: Geryon fifteen and counting

V. Brokenheart
===========
Herakles broke his heart of course.
Sailed Geryon's body through the dark waves of the night and
then sailed on.
Left Geryon behind ashore his own red isle
(no epic hero ever could stay put for long.)

"Geryon you know we will always be friends," he said
as his boat tipped over the horizon.
Geryon raised his camera to fix him there
but his eyes were wet and blind and all he caught was
wind and water and a departing edge of sail.

Geryon wrapped his wings tight round himself and breathed out
small red cries for days.

("Quiet up there," said his brother, "some of us are trying to sleep.")

Geryon gathered his cries and his camera, ignored questioning
brother-grumbles and
stepped outside into the night.

VI. Outside!
=============

Outside there was wind and stars and the
invisible horizon where no sails stood.
The cold made Geryon's breath white,
made his wings shiver out stiff behind him.
Then the sea-wind caught them up like leaves and
Geryon was aloft!
camera still clutched tight in his hand.

Below him his house was small and dark. "Geryon?"
Rose his brother's voice thin through the night, "What are you doing? Geryon
get down from there!"

Geryon turned his camera from the house to the sea.
The winds stroked his red scales.
Up this high he could see the distant lights across the water.

VII. The City
===========
Geryon decided to visit the distant city.

There was a certain club there Herakles had
mentioned once or twice and
Geryon dressed carefully:
jeans;
the proper sneakers on his neat red feet;
the t-shirt Herakles had given him with the red heart on its sleeve.

"Five dollar cover," said the man at the door
peering from his smoky cave.
"You sure you're old enough for this?"

"Yes," said Geryon,
sure of nothing, and
scrubbed wings stiff and shy behind him he
stepped inside.

Inside eyes looked at him and
he pretended to be brave.
Bought a drink, gin and tonic,
(his mother's drink but all he could think to ask for)
which grew warm in his paw as he
perched on a high stool and watched
men's feet go by.

When the centaur sat down next to him
he felt his face flare.

"Aren't you the shy one now," said the centaur.
"I like your t-shirt."

Geryon nervously glanced at him,
man-parts and horse-parts
matter-of-factly naked both.
He'd always wondered,
did centaurs sleep standing up like horses or
lying down like men?

He risked a look round the rest of the bar.
A drunken myrmidon in one corner, a lone Titan in leather,
some boys on the dance-floor with grape-leaves in their hair,
and he hadn't really expected to see Herakles but -

The centaur's eyes were brown as his hide and
kind enough, Geryon supposed.

"Do you have a cigarette?" he asked.

"Want to go somewhere we can talk?" replied the centaur,
"How old are you anyway?"

"Old enough," said Geryon,
and swallowed the rest of his drink.

VIII. Nighttimes
========
Geryon photographed the centaur
(a smile of strong square teeth)
and soon others at the club also:
One or two of the grape-leaf boys,
with their honeyed mouths and generous pleasure;
a stray Spartan, his face like ledges of stone,
who showed Geryon a photo of the companion he'd left at home,
then dispensed to him drinks and stern advice.

Even, one night
(nervous, but willing to taste all
this new world had to offer)
the Titan.

Closing time had found them
watching one another and
when the Titan left
Geryon followed
climbed aboard his bike behind him
pressed his cheek against his oiled leathers.

The Titan brought him to a chamber where a
high wide bed was only one of many objects
(was that a *dentist's* chair in the corner, Geryon wondered?)

His great voice ordered him naked and
Geryon, wings fluttering, complied
feeling spirals in his mind like the old days, hot and red,
but something -
perhaps the way the Titan's many tools
were arrayed against the wall
each whip and shackle in its own compartment
like his mother's manicure kit -
made Geryon suddenly, helplessly,
giggle.

The Titan sighed then,
and shucked off his leathers,
lifted Geryon into the high bed and
held him against his broad chest through the night
while he wept for his
lost brothers and useless lonely size.

In the morning he made french toast.

Geryon photographed the empty leathers
and the Titan bent over the too-small stove.
He wondered, these mornings, at all the things
that night-time could contain and
the different ways that bodies
could be held or wielded.

From time to time heroes came to the club but
Geryon turned away from their
wide, white smiles.

IX. Visit
======
Then one day
Geryon was left alone
with the bunkbeds
his brother gone away to school.

On the bare mattress below he
opened his autobiography,
spread the pictures and
drawings out in rows
all his secret night-times and bright red days

But the room still felt like his brother's

One evening he came home and found
a girl long-legged in the kitchen with his mother.
"Your brother's home for the weekend," said his mother,
lighting a cigarette, "and look who he brought."

Geryon stared at her then flew up the stairs.
His brother was sitting on the bottom bunk,
flipping through the photos, his lip curled.

"What are you playing at, Geryon?"
he asked, staring at the
perfect round behinds of the grape-leaf boys,
"Who are these freaks anyway? Does Mom know what you've been up to?"

Geryon's wings stood out fierce at his sides.
"Who are they? They ... they are like brothers to me," he said,
"and Mom doesn't know anything."

His brother's eyes went mean and scared.
"Mom's sleeping in here tonight, so that we can have her room,"
he said. "You'd better clean this crap up."

Geryon cleaned.
Later, under the cover of his mother's soft snores,
he slipped through the window and
flew for the last ferry.
The doors of the club would
still be open.

X. Where are you?
--------------------------
"Where are you all the time now Geryon?"
asked Geryon's mother.

These days his brother's girl had a
shiny diamond finger and
she and Geryon's mother murmured
white dresses back and forth, heads close.

Their voices buzzed in Geryon's ears like distant bees.

The house was filling up with whiteness,
veils pale linen tablecloths white shirts
magazines devoted to white cake debates and
Geryon felt his redness hot and loud.

("Did you ever tell her?" he asked his brother.
"Tell her *what*?" said his brother, looking down.)

For the first time Geryon wondered
what feasts and offerings might mark
his own eventual choosing.
Herakles had told him tales of warriors
swearing comradeship and fealty by their blades but
on the whole, thought Geryon,
he'd prefer something less bloody.
Not to die in one another's arms but live!

"Is there a, a -
someone you'd like to invite
to the wedding?" asked his mother
(his brother suddenly stiff-faced behind her back)

Geryon tried to imagine the titan or the centaur
by his side at the table, name inscribed
on a smooth white card
and couldn't.

XI. Homefires
===============

There comes a day when even a monster
must leave home.

"Don't be a stranger now," said his mother and
Geryon kissed her on the cheek and
bade the bunkbeds and homefires goodbye.

His brother helped him move.

"Geryon you're making a big mistake,"
He panted over his armload of books.
The stairs to Geryon's small room were crooked and steep.

"What are you going to make of yourself
why don't you get an education
what can life hold for a simple red monster?"

"My life has taught me plenty already," said Geryon

His brother snorted, hah.
"And what use will *those* things be?" he asked.

At the head of the stairs Geryon picked up his camera and
pointed it down at his brother peering
up, eyes startled behind the books.

"There are different kinds of useful," Geryon said.

Later his brother helped him put his futon
in the corner by the window then
stood staring a while at its
clean new surface.

(Lately his wife had bloomed round at the belly.)

What he said then was: "You know I'm sorry, Geryon."

"Well, I think that's everything," said Geryon.
"Thanks for helping, some friends are coming over to help me unpack
you don't need to stick around."