after she couldn't bring herself to say the word
"lesbian"—it stuck in her throat like cattail down
to its stalk on a windless day—and so instead
she said "same sex." She said "who you think
you are," and I didn't bother correcting
her because I know my saviors.
Before the meds, before the friends, before the realization
that flipped me right-side-up, it was the house finch
flinging treble notes to the sun. The fossils in limestone,
the smell of the balsam fir. The cinnamon roll
thawed in the microwave and gulped down with
with cafe con leche. Waiting for the next episode
of the animated show about queer witches.
Reading what the others have written down
to make their resting places, following them
in my little handcar of poems. So I try
to tell her, and she is blank
and disappointed under her Bible-verse decals,
and I burn, I burn with lust for living.
