The raucous room and wine, rollicking around us
awash in social currents and plumage all fanned out
and passers by drifted close to take a look and then
shifted chins and rolling eye to sit jowl to jowl and nook to crook.
(Donne wasn’t talking about trans-folk when he quipped
“no man is an island”, for I was a life boat drifting on an endless sea
and stranded, the fishies below and the birdies above
and me no water to drink in the midst of many waters)
tables full and over full, like bellies and wine glasses
which were groaning and clinking atonal and rhythmic
choruses echoed in this gathered congregation of the goddess Socializing
and her consort mammon to whom offerings would be made of time and treasure
Ah, but look…and see our dingy, drifting on desert seas entire
in this oasis of walled off spaces, our puffed up air-filled punt
the good ship “I Alone Survived” bobbed high and pristine, clean, in order
midst the merry chaos and the choruses of othering swelling with the music
perhaps we were mistaken as tee-totalers of banquets,
or the step children vegan and red headed in the throng.
OH! the weight watchers attending but on such a strict repast
that we were tasked to come and eat the food but fast the feasts of friends.
We sit alone, apart (the better to stare at you, my dear) in this overcrowded room
full of overcrowded tables, one there in the middle overcrowded by blank emptiness
occupied by someone glowing shining sparking becoming but accounted as a
lost placeholder only, and the one who loves her there, sitting side by side and stark.
It’s a long and lonely desert trudge, and not all deserts dunes…
sometimes deserts teem with life and trees and nights under soft moons
but the doors are locked, the gates are hidden deep in mystery
of how a transgirl finds her way and what becomes her key
To walk amidst the forests, in the fields of human kindness
there to forage for the herbs medicinal to cure that blindness
and to find that song, the notes to open up locked hearts, deaf ears
until then the Other will go forth, sowing in tears…
“…Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. She who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing her sheaves with her.”
Psalms 126:5-6
*gender pronouns altered, meaning not violated)
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