The speaker looks at beautiful young people in the present and wonders where they were when he was a child. Every generation believes beauty belongs to someone else. Every generation eventually discovers that it was temporary.

Where were they
when I was a kid,
the gorgeous young
I see?

Did they drop
from the moon
on each sand dune

or arrive
at five
just for me?

Where were they
with their hair
and their teeth
and their shoulders
and stomachs, too;

did they fall
out of sight
on each summer’s night,
just to tempt me
and bend me
with fear?

I see them now
crowd the streets
and the beach,
the subways
and fashion stores,

they seem so cool,
unruffled and cruel
and make light fools
of us all.

But as you expect,
soon, quite direct,
they’ll become
just as you and I:

then the curious types
from their shadows will gripe,
just what did
become of us all?

Perry Brass
The poem originally appeared in Sex-Charge (1991).

Perry Brass is an acclaimed American author, journalist, poet, and pioneering LGBTQ+ rights activist. Born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1947, he became a core figure in the post-Stonewall gay liberation movement in New York City.