J Mase III
50 years after Stonewall
I am standing in this store rifling through the crisp pages
of a famous old dyke’s poetry book
Created just months ago by
beautiful butch hands that have become bitter
from penning notes to her cis-het male lovers
fictitiously invented for her conservative fan base
and her elderly mother’s weak heart
and it strikes me among all these words
devoid of her own emotional presence
that I expected her to write me a poem
I wanted her to write me a poem
I wanted her to write me the sweetest of love poems
about my kinky hair
about my brown skin
about my smooth hips
about what two queer bodies must surely look like moving through the dark
I wanted her to write me a love poem about freedom
I wanted her to write me a love poem that will convince a father
his 13-year-old trans son is still a child
and not a leather bound punching bag
I wanted her to write me a love poem that would house 1000 trans kids
that have not had a home to go to
I wanted her to write me a love poem
that lets two boxer wearing Black trans fags
hold hands down a dark alley
and not feel fear of their neighbors or the police
I wanted her to write me a love poem
that would have saved the lives of
Tyra Hunter,
Nizah Morris,
Tony McDade,
Erica Keel,
Blake Brockington,
Mya Hall,
and Sakia Gunn
I wanted her to write me a love poem
that lets a lesbian English teacher in Tennessee
simultaneously keep her job
and a picture of her first lover on her heart
I wanted her to write me a love poem
that would have tucked me in at 16 and told me
it was okay to want love
to try love
to feel loved
and that the true sin of Sodom and Gomorrah
was about greed
I wanted her to write me a poem
because to her other fans
it could have been just that
but to us
it could have been
so much more