Let’s get our poetry on for the start of Pride month, shall we?
Dear Gaybashers by JILL MCDONOUGH
The night we got bashed we told Rusty how
they drove up, yelled QUEER, threw a hot dog, sped off.
Rusty: Now, is that gaybashing? Or
are they just calling you queer? Good point.
Josey pitied the fools: who buys a perfectly good pack of wieners
and drives around San Francisco chucking them at gays?
And who speeds off? Missing the point, the pleasure of the bash?
Dear bashers, you should have seen the hot dog hit my neck,
the scarf Josey sewed from antique silk kimonos: so gay. You
missed laughing at us, us confused, your raw hot dog on the ground.
Josey and Rusty and Bob make fun of the gaybashers, and I
wash my scarf in the sink. I use Woolite. We worry
about insurance, interest rates. Not hot dogs thrown from F-150s,
homophobic freaks. After the bashing, we used the ATM
in the sex shop next to Annie’s Social Club, smiled at the kind
owner, his handlebar mustache. Astrud Gilberto sang tall and tan
and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema… and the dildos
gleamed from the walls, a hundred cheerful colors. In San Francisco
it rains hot dogs, pity-the-fool. Ass-sized penguins, cock after cock in
azure acrylic, butterscotch glass, anyone’s flesh-tone, chrome.
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body without the “D” by JUSTICE AMEER
the bo’y wakes up
the bo’y looks at itself
the bo’y notices something missing
there is both too much and not enough flesh on the bo’y
the bo’y is covered in hair
what a hairy bo’y
some makes it look more like a bo’y
some makes it look more like a monster
the bo’y did not learn to shave from its father
so it taught itself how to graze its skin and cut things off
the bo’y cuts itself by accident
the blood reminds the bo’y it is a bo’y
reminds the bo’y how a bo’y bleeds
reminds the bo’y that not every bo’y bleeds
the bo’y talks to a girl about bleeding
she explains how this bo’y works
this bo’y is different from hers
bo’y has too much and not enough flesh to be her
the biology of a bo’y is just
bo’y will only ever be a bo’y
the bo’y is Black
so the bo’y is and will only ever be a bo’y
the bo’y couldn’t be a man if it tried
the bo’y tried
the bo’y feels empty
the bo’y feels like it will only ever be empty
the bo’y feels that it will never hold the weight of another bo’y inside of it
no matter how many ds fit inside the bo’y
the bo’y is a hollow facade
it attempts a convincing veneer
bo’y dresses — what hips on the bo’y
bo’y paints its face — what lips on the bo’y
bo’y adorns itself with labels written for lovelier frames
what a beautiful bo’y
still a bo’y
but a fierce bo’y now
a royal bo’y now
a bo’y worthy of being called queen
what a dazzling ruse
to turn a bo’y into a lie everyone loves to look at
the bo’y looks at itself
the bo’y sees all the gawking at its gloss
the bo’y hears all the masses asking for its missing
the bo’y offers all of its letters
— ‘ b ’ for the birth
— ‘ o ’ for the operation
— ‘ y ’ for the lack left in its genes
what this bo’y would abandon
for the risk of being real
the bo’y is real
enough and too much
existing as its own erasure
— what an elusive d —
evading removal
avoiding recognition
leaving just a bo’y
that is never lost
but can’t be found
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first and most important
dream our missing friends forward
burn their reflections into empty chairs
we are less bound by time than the clockmaker fears
this morning all I want is to follow where the stone angels point
birdsong lashing me to tears
heterosexuals need to see our suffering
the violent deaths of our friends and lovers
to know glitter on a queer is not to dazzle but to
unsettle the foundation of this murderous culture
defiant weeds smashing up through cement
you think Oscar Wilde was funny
well Darling I think he was busy
distracting straight people
so they would not kill him
if you knew how many times I
have been told you’re not like my
gay best friend who tells me
jokes and makes me laugh
no I sure as fuck am not
I have no room in my life to
audition for your pansy mascot
you people can’t kill me and
think you can kill me again
I met a tree in Amsterdam and
stood barefoot beside it for twenty
minutes then left completely restored
yet another poem not written by a poet
sometimes we need one muscle to
relax so the others follow
my friend Mandy calls after a
long shift at the strip club to say
while standing in line for death I am
fanning my hot pussy with your new book
will you sign it next week my fearless faggot sister
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Lex Writes On 