Stop Bath
By seventeen, I knew to slide open a window without making a sound, how to run. Knew the right skirt, right angle to tilt my hip, right corner of Richmond Road to hitchhike on. Knew to avoid the Ford trucks that always stopped, and the Camaro’s that rarely did. I knew the seven sacraments, the priest who always preferred me on my knees in his office, but upright in the choir loft on Sundays. Knew the archangel, Michael. Knew the right blond wig to wear in the right hotel to pass as a tourist, in a town where everyone is drag. Knew the back of a movie theatre, how to spend an entire rainy day watching Shawshank Redemption for free and knew it was queer before I knew the word queer. Knew how to blow a stranger long and slow enough for cash for dinner. Because my mama’s check from the gas station never lasted. And hunger was familiar. What I didn’t know was how to hide cash. How to hide from a stepfather who stared, who took pictures of me against any tree on the Parkway, and then rocked my smile closed, immersed in a chemical developer before halting with a stop bath. Only to clothespin my headshot across the shower rod.
* * * * *
Lease
When an object reverses
direction
its instantaneous velocity
is zero.
Distance and time
are ghosts of estrangement.
Longing never ceases,
nor does reason.
How can I take up residency
in another
when I have known only
how to squat?
I have never been an owner,
always on lease.
How can I place a sign
that says welcome home
when I have never thought
I was sovereign,
a structure worth bending.
I move to the space of other
another, any other,
evacuate then lap in
and out of another sack of flesh
with irrelevant names.
Begging the other to do the work.
What would it mean to not leave,
to cease lapping the nameless?
Would grace come?
Would I recognize her?
Would she know my name?