Up at Starlight

In my initial days of adolescence

I feared becoming a fag –

caressed between men’s fingers

lit up from out to inward by their looks

and sleight of hand, sucked in

from the bottom until I was ash.

Right around the same time

my sister admitted to our mother

that she watched the L-Word

not out of fascination but affirmation;

yet when my sister would use the g-word

as an insult, our mother thought it

Disrespectful. Ironic then

that when my lesbian sister

became my transgender brother

years later, our mother cried

why couldn’t you just stay gay?

She murmurs

Either way, I’ll pray for you.

My sister used to tease me saying

I’d grow up gay. At last I asked her: how

can you and your lover lay on the roof

of your car at a rest stop staring up

at starlight knowing full well the men there

Filling up want to turn their pumps on

you – gasoline soaking into your flesh

while sparks flutter so you blister

as any fag would? I fear too,

she answered then, but

eventually they’ll see we’re all ash.

I find myself in dreams

still begging him for his forgiveness

for my bigotry across thousands of miles

of manifest destined plains.

Mistakes are what makes us human

he answers now, but

dousing the flames makes us beloved.