“And there is, for me, no difference between writing 

a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body 

of a woman I love.”

            Audre Lorde 

the whole place is technicolor every dyke this side of the highway 

shimmering a fine gloss of cheetah print conflicting patterns boots 

pre-worn and peeling hands firm on each other’s hips lips on necks 

cigarette smoke curling our ears walls shrugging a fine gloss of sweat 

and cigarette smoke and girls giving each other head in the bathroom 

fingers slick with whiskey spilled and caught in mouths open to night air 

the whole bar hidden in a dark la street us three walking by scarves as belts 

singing in the watery breeze the bouncers stopping us halfway beyond 

the unmarked entrance you looking for honeys as if we could be looking 

for anything else our haircuts enough to give us away one dyke one bisexual 

one straight man walk into a lesbian bar the joke being it’s 9pm and we’re here 

for a conference one of those academic ones where we’re shmoozing 

and thinking about poetics as political practice as liberatory as personal 

as in when I write about my wife I’m thinking about the people who don’t 

want wives to have wives and how that feels like a shattering even though I 

pretend it doesn’t make me feel less than sometimes it makes writing poetry 

feel like an impossibility something only people who aren’t scared do or can do 

or have the time for and sometimes I wonder when poetry will start doing all 

its liberating or maybe it’s part of the process or maybe I’m not reading Lorde 

Rich Myles Jordan Stein Bishop Kelly Finney right or maybe I’m not letting it 

settle sternly into my skin which is what I tell my students when they ask how 

do you read poetry or maybe I’m not letting feeling guide me through which is what 

I say when my students ask why are you crying after I read aloud “It is this possibility 

of you asleep and breathing in the quiet air” and can barely finish without my breath 

hitching on possibility but right now we’re in this lesbian bar and my wife is 3000 

miles away and I’m texting her I wish we were dancing together I wish there were places 

for us at home and mandy’s whiskey coke isn’t enough whiskey and my gin 

and tonic is too much gin and cole’s beer is four dollars too expensive 

and cole says wanna dance and we do we put our hands on each other’s shoulders 

and shout as loud as we can and someone puts their elbow in my eye and we laugh 

too loud and not one of us brings up classes not one of us asks what we’ll do 

when we return to south carolina and feel the hot air sending us swimming 

and in my phone my wife says I’m so glad you’re having a nice time 

and in this lesbian bar in the basement of a motel 8 

we all shimmer that lovely technicolor possibility