You say, as if young soldiers in Bastogne’s trenches were not checking out

each other’s bayonets, as if Kamikaze pilots did not plunge to their deaths

full of hetero-regrets – the virile vein of the homo-erect gashed by patriarchal

etiquette. As if Roma romance died in Marzhan’s chambers, as if pink triangles

of erasure dissipated Jewish men’s forbidden pleasure; as if back home, retro

Aviator glasses did not hide the lesbian’s furtive glances. As though sweat never d

                                                                                                                              r

                                                                                                                          i

                                                                                                                       pp

                                                                                                                   e

                                                                                                                       d  from the chest

of a leather-wearing thug to the contrapuntal tongue of a gentleman who had flung

his fedora aside to taste crime; as if his wife (that strainer of macaroni at midnight)

did not seek relief in a younger woman’s cleavage line, never brought her charming

neighbour a climax-baked carrot cake, never caressed Eva’s nape, did not make

her firm thighs                s h a k e     with her savant’s hand alone.  I SAY – let Sappho moan

for us again! I say count every illicit fuck to have blessed the cemetery, each one

bringing a black death that did not break our pact – what of the bug chaser? What

of the cuck? Think of park benches creaking under the weight of glorious rebellion,

of a dimly lit               

             b  a  c  k

                                             a  l  l  e  y            

consecrated by the release of a punk’s sp u  n  k

(the true second coming). When will you realise that this is only us toned down?

Reduced! Subdued! Benumbed! Exiled from the Empire of Camp and forced

to set up tent between your cishet c/rac/ks. It didn’t happen in your day? Oh,

please! we’ve been around – from fusing kings, jesters, gods and clowns

beneath the                    m                                                                                                                                                                    

       o

                                o

                                        n

to the delicious moment of now: of tasting metal scissors cutting the butch haircut, of feeling

the Drag Queen’s nipple tape peeled apart by salty moisture, of swelling erythroblast with gay and

making them pay, not for seroconversion, but for the hate, it is our turn to say love, to scream/yell/beat

scream/explode/rebel –

                                                   to be iconoclasts who accept, at last, that

no poetry can make you see us present in your past. ∎

Words by Flavius Covaci. Art by Lauren Cooper.