Friday 24 May 2024

1967. The Operative Word.

  We met in the park

It was one of those nights

The small building was more than

quaintly ornamental

I am a bird

he said

and

I am bait  

how

dutifully I answered

  And the operative word?

Jail

we said together

Then I read him

his rights

I was in blue

and he wore leather

                                                                                                                      Catherine Eisner


Cottage (British slang). A public lavatory when 
regarded as a meeting place for homosexual men.
Cottaging. The practice of anonymous sexual
relations between men in a public lavatory.
(The term arises from public conveniences often
resembling faux-rustic structures created for formal
ornamental gardens of stately homes in the imperial period.)

See also: 
1993 Soho Gay Slayer: Colin Ireland and Art’s Sadomasochistic Cabal.


See also:
1940 when the blackout of WW2 closed the park gates on a requiem for lost innocence . . .
Here, for example, is a Park
clearly intended for the dark.