gay table commercial in no particular order by Tyler Raso
Poetry editor Heath Joseph Wooten on today’s poem: Tyler Raso’s “gay table commercial in no particular order” is an absurd triumph. The ekphrastic eye here is shocking in its intensity of focus, its insistence on cataloging every single gay thing. The simultaneously sterile and hilarious voice brilliantly gives way to a dénouement ripe with understated eroticism and intimacy. Like every successful ekphrastic work, I come away from this poem feeling that I’ve experienced more than the words themselves. This poem is a universe—a very gay universe.
gay table commercial in no particular order
after Dining Room, a 1994 IKEA commercial which was “considered the first television advertisement broadcast in the United States that openly presented a gay couple”
Eagle angle on gay men with identical
haircuts eating salad with fork
and knife. Sensible decor. Band-aid
shade of beige. Fingernail shade
of beige. Tree-inside shade of
beige. Hotel wall shade of beige.
Shot of gay men at dining room table,
point of view flat, so that viewer believably
sits in a chair that is also for sale. Dark
liquors in transparent glasses confirm
that these gay men are man
enough. No adornment besides
the shadow cast by an indoor tree, which
brushes the brick wall like a price tag.
This commercial bravely depicts
two gay men in public wearing
a suit jacket and a concrete windbreaker. Shot
of uncentered gay man lifting chair in showroom
with oblong cradle arms, looking
from object to camera. Every object the gay
men touch tan, gray, white, or
out of view. Shot of gay man standing
behind open cabinet, partially windowed
like a neighbor. Shot of gay hand
knocking on table’s edge to prove
its design, gay body otherwise absent
from frame, gay body otherwise
immaterial. The commercial even has
an element of romance. See gay man
place gay hand on gay man’s gay
shoulder, gay hand unlingering, gay
hand wiping downward like a paper
towel and unperching from gay
shoulder, less than a second of contact, more
shots of a silent dinner, gay man
wedging a butter knife like a finger
through steak, cut to black
just before he opens his mouth.
Tyler Raso (they/she) is trans and in-progress. Their work is featured or forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill Journal, Split Lip Magazine, The Journal, and elsewhere. They can be found tweeting @spaghettiutopia.
