Sister Chitlin’, Brother NeckBone and several of their oxymoron minions

Circle round my sick room, Swathed in paper surgical gowns.

Brandishing crosses, clutching bibles, (God, please don’t let them sing hymns!)

Pestering me to recant the wicked ways that brought me here.

“Renounce your sins and return to Jesus!” Shouts one of the zealous flock.

“The truth is I never left Him,” I reply with a fingersnap.

“Don’t you wish you’d chosen a normal lifestyle?”

“Sister, for me, I’m sure I did.”

Let the congregation work overtime for my eleventh-hour conversion.

Their futile efforts fortify my unrepentant resolve.

Though my body be racked by capricious pains and fevers,

I’m not even about to yield to fashionable gay Black temptation.

Mother Piaf’s second greatest hit title is taped to the inside of my brain

And silently repeated like a mantra: “Non, je ne regrette rien.”

I don’t regret the hot Latino boxer I made love to on Riverside Drive prior to a Washington march.

I don’t regret wild Jersey nights spent in the arms of conflicted satyrs;

I don’t regret late night and early a.m. encounters with world-class insatiables.

My only regrets are being ill, bed-ridden and having no boyfriend to pray over me.

And that now I’ll never see Europe or my African homeland except in photos in a book or magazine.

Engrave on my tombstone:

“Here sleeps a happy Black faggot

Who lived to love and died

With no guilt.”

No, I regret nothing of the gay life I’ve led and there’s no way in Heaven or Hell I’ll let anyone make me.

I’ve had to bear the days anonymously like a shadow

Slip through the city without raising suspicions

I’ve avoided countless roads

jumped every fence 

always fleeing

with a haste that bites my heels and barely lets me breathe

hiding behind so many illusions 

for so many years

that now I don’t even know the face of my soul

or recall what brought me to this fugitive’s life

my crime must have been as huge as the darkness found

in my punishment above all

I’ve sought the mute company of night

I’ve learned to fake nearly everything

But still when next to you I’m given away 

by the empty pounding of my heart

The Other Day I Ran into García Lorca - Alarcón 1990

I recognized him

by the slim bow tie

his lips

his eyes

olive colored

guitars

wept and

the afternoon

danced

flamenco

suddenly

he stood

walked

directly

to my table

and planted

a kiss like

an Andalusian sun

on my lips

Spanish Original Text:

Prófugo - Alarcón 2002

he tenido que soportar los días anónimo como sombra

escurrirme por la ciudad sin causar sospecha

he rodeado innumerables caminos saltado cada cerca 

huyendo siempre 

con una prisa que me muerde los talones y apenas me deja respirar 

ocultándome tras tantas quimeras 

durante tantos años 

que ahora ya ni distingo el rostro de mi alma 

ni recuerdo qué me llevó a esta vida de prófugo

mi crimen debe haber sido enorme como la oscuridad que carrea

mi pena ante todo he 

procurado la compañía muda de la noche 

he aprendido a disimular casi todo 

pero todavía me delata junto

a ti el desbocado palpitar de mi corazón

El otro día me encontré a García Lorca - Alarcón 1990

lo reconocí 

por el moño

 los labios

 los ojos 

olivos

 lloraban

 guitarras

 y bailaba 

flamenco 

la tarde 

de pronto 

se paró 

vino 

directo 

a mi mesa 

y me plantó 

un beso 

como sol 

andaluz 

en la boca

There are so many roots to the tree of anger

that sometimes the branches shatter

before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks

the women rally before they march

discussing the problematic girls

they hire to make them free.

An almost white counterman passes

a waiting brother to serve them first

and the ladies neither notice nor reject

the slighter pleasures of their slavery.

But I who am bound by my mirror

as well as my bed

see causes in colour

as well as sex

and sit here wondering

which me will survive

all these liberations.

Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we’ll be.

Keeping time in the dance together,
you’ll be singing the song with me.
Grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we’ll be.

I’m called Hope and you’re called Rose:
but losing our names we’ll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we’ll be.

Spanish Original Text:

Dame La Mano 

Dame la mano y danzaremos;
dame la mano y me amarás.
Como una sola flor seremos,
como una flor, y nada más.

El mismo verso cantaremos,
al mismo paso bailarás.
Como una espiga ondularemos,
como una espiga, y nada más.

Te llamas Rosa y yo Esperanza;
pero tu nombre olvidarás,
porque seremos una danza
en la colina y nada más.

...

I would say my gender is Black

And that masculinity is just

How I relate to other beings

A state

An expression

A genre of human experience

When you ask me how I survived it, I say

I learned to send up a flare

I still naturally lilt my voice

Trauma bonds

And maybe some toxic ass nigga shit

But I'll be damned

If I'm going to be trapped in your image of me

Swallowed

On some slow, miserable death shit

If my younger self could see me now

They would ask

You chose yourself?

You're not scared to go to hell?

If my parents were still here,

Would I be this looking free?

Some girlhoods end in manhood

And we don't talk about those things

What isn't allowed under masculinity

What kept us from ourselves

And consumed with survival

I'm learning how to speak on it

Stand in it

Move in spaces

Embody the divine feminine

Honor the masculine

And see myself

One day I realized

I just don't have to give a fuck

I don't have to make my parents proud

I could just give myself permission

I already knew, I already felt

I know what my people look like

Whether you see us or not

And in the end

The conversation will always include me

Because Black women and queers

Will always be at the forefront of the struggle

Will always be at the forefront of the struggle

Will always be at the forefront of the struggle

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos

so brown, so fierce, 

so black, so beautiful, 

That if you spend too much time caught up in yourself

You just might miss Him that is goddess, 

she that is god, 

they that are legends

Working the runway as if walking on water 

Reaching the stage to that promised land

where ‘peace’ is not ridiculed and the only war worth fighting for

is protecting your child from the terrorist acts of a mainstream America

...

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so black, so fierce,
so black, so beautiful,
so brown, so fierce,
so brown, so beautiful,
Watch them carefully and say your prayers as they enter the ballroom
angel wing feathers decorating skin
recrafted over silicone and martyred colors
See the Gods dream, see the Gods give,
see the Gods live,
They exist in the spaces where white is not the only hue that represents purity
They will not battle to your rhythms and beats
click, spin and dip simply for amusement
They will not teach those who share their souls and names to hate
Their heartbeats are louder than the blaring speakers 

You want realness... look at your hands
are they red from the revolution or from the blood of your own sisters

There are Gods amongst us in these ghettos
so black, so brown, so fierce,
so beautiful, so bright
Look up towards the heavens and pray
then look at yourself in the mirror and say
‘Stars are not only found out in the sky
but in ourselves’

Can't stop eating you, movie-style extra butter microwave popcorn.

Can't stop watching you, rented movie about an immigrant family

from Lebanon. Can't help but weep, seeing the family wave

goodbye to relatives in the Beirut airport—tear salt mixing with

popcorn salt. Can't hide my mess, myself from the friend beside me

Can't answer his question, Does it remind you of your family, leaving China?

I want to say, No, it's completely different, which in many ways it is, but really

I'm remembering what a writer friend once said to me, All you write about

is being gay Or Chinese—how I can't get over that, & wonder if it's true,

if everything I write is in some way an immigrant narrative or another

coming out story. I recall a recent poem, featuring fishmongers in Seattle,

& that makes me happy—clearly that one isn't about being gay or Chinese.

But then I remember a significant number of Chinese immigrants

live in Seattle & how I found several of the Pike Place fishmongers

attractive when I visited, so I guess that poem's about being gay

& Chinese, too. So I say to my friend, I'm not sure, & keep eating

the popcorn. Thank god we chose the giant "family size" bag. Can't stop

the greasy handfuls, noisy mouthfuls. Can't eat popcorn quietly.

Later, during my friend's smoke break, still can't come up with worthy

response to his radical queer critique of homonormativity, of monogamy,

domesticity, front lawn glory. These middle-class gays picking out

garden gnomes, ignoring all the anti-racist work of decolonization

that still needs to be done—don't you think they're lame? I say, Yeah, for sure,

but think, marriage, house, 1 kid, 2 cats—how long have I wanted that?

Could I give that up in the name of being a real queer? Probably can't.

& it's like another bad habit I can't give up. Eating junk, can't. Procrastinating,

can't. Picking scabs can't. Being friends with people who challenge

my beliefs & life plans, can't. Reading & believing in Ayn Rand, though?

Can, Brief phase as a Christian because I liked the cross as an accessory? Can.

WWJD? Can. White heterosexist patriarchy? Can. America ... can't.

Can’t help but think, when we get back to the movie, how it was my father’s 

decision to move here, not my mother’s, just like the parents on screen.

Can’t stop replaying my mother’s walk onto the plane, carrying me,

though I was getting too old for it, holding me, my face pressed into her

hair, her neck, as she cried, quietly—can't stop returning to this scene of leaving,

can't stop pausing the scene, thinking I've left something out again,

something else my mother told me. Like my grandmother at the airport,

how she saw my small body so tied to my mother's body, & still she doubted

she had to say, You better not lose him. & my mother kept that promise

till she couldn't, she lost me, in the new country, but doesn't

that happen to all parents & their children, one way or another,

& don't we need to get lost? Lost, dizzy, stubbly, warm, stumbling,

whoa—that's what it felt like, 17, kissing a boy for the first time

Can't forget it. Can't forget when my mother found out & said

This would never have happened if we hadn't come to this country,

But it would've happened, every bit as dizzy, lost, back in China.

It didn't happen because of America, dirty Americans. It was me,

my need. My father said, You have to change, but I couldn't, can't

give you up, boys & heat, scruff & sweet. Can't get over you. Trying to get

over what my writer friend said, All you write about is being gay or Chinese.

Wish I had thought to say to him, All you write about is being white

or an asshole. Wish I had said, No, I already write about everything—

& everything is salt, noise, struggle, hair,

carrying, kisses, leaving, myth, popcorn,

mothers, bad habits, questions.

On your slender body

Your jade and coral girdle ornaments chime

Like those of a celestial companion

Come from the Green Jade City of Heaven.

One smile from you when we meet,

And I become speechless and forget every word.

For too long you have gathered flowers,

And leaned against the bamboos,

Your green sleeves growing cold,

In your deserted valley:

I can visualize you all alone,

A girl harboring her cryptic thoughts.

You glow like a perfumed lamp

In the gathering shadows.

We play wine games

And recite each other’s poems.

Then you sing `Remembering South of the River’

With its heart breaking verses. Then

We paint each other’s beautiful eyebrows.

I want to possess you completely –

Your jade body

And your promised heart.

It is Spring.

Vast mists cover the Five Lakes.

My dear, let me buy a red painted boat

And carry you away

Since I left home to seek official state

Seven years I have lived in Ch'ang-an.

What have I gained? Only you, Yuan;

So hard it is to bind friendship fast. . . .

We did not go up together for Examination;

We were not serving in the same Department of State.

The bond that joined us lay deeper than outward things;

The rivers of our souls spring from the same well!

Yuan Zhen to Bo Juyi

Other people too have friends that they love;

But ours was a love such as few friends have known.

You were all my sustenance; it mattered more

To see you daily than to get my morning food.

And if there was a single day when we did not meet

I would sit listless, my mind in a tangle of gloom.

To think we are now thousands of miles apart,

Lost like clouds, each drifting on his far way!

Those clouds on high, where many winds blow,

What is their chance of ever meeting again?

And if in open heaven the beings of the air

Are driven and thwarted, what of Man below?