“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