women have been flowers for millennia--
o let me paint you my lily of the valley, my narcissa,
my wild rose let me tell you what you look like
and therefore who you are-- but
here in this room, with all of these femme faces
lifted up to mine, i find myself
for once not at odds with a traditional telling of beauty.
we are a garden, here and now, and in our hands
rest petal and stamen both, and when we dance
we are the breeze and the bees.
tell me your story, sister, and i'll let you pick which blossom you are.

in this group are many stories and only in this group
exist the ears to hear them all. though we are
all flowers, wearing our difference and identity
and color and scent and familiarity and memories on our bodies
out in the world, it is into this dirt
that we sink delicate roots.
most of us do not think the roots will hold.

but we grow anyway: raucous against each other,
with varied moments of blossom and bloom and decay.
queer femmes have always built the garden
in which to keep themselves.
first because we are the only ones we trust
to do the pruning, and second
because every other bed has proven dangerous.
in this group there are many differences but
on one subject, we approach totality.

and so the roots do hold. the more of us that grow
together, the more stable the soil in which
new plants can bloom. the roots are tired, pale and frail
as newborn fingers curling around
a satisfying piece of loam, we are always rebirthing each other
and the roots do hold.

I am always the type to feel guilt
in snapping off the dead done-blooming flowerheads
from the shrubs. My mother
tried to reassure me, showing me how already
new, plump buds begin to sprout,
orange cheeks beginning to purse. She said
we had to snap off the dead to allow
for the growth of the new,
but I could never follow in her footsteps
through the garden, browned and shriveled
buds in her wake, my own
hands too guilty to do the same,
plump and shivering under the June sun.

Who I am

when the rains come 

(not who I am when the words come, not 

who I am when the smoke and I commune, silent

in the backyard over the grave I made of your letters) and

the juniper is foreign here. I have needed it. 

The oil grubs, stuck in my hands. Your blood

is grit under my nails. 

Who I am when the lightning strikes: 

barely visible, decisive talon, junkie hearted

and throbbing on the stoop.

Invite me in. 

Don’t give

up

on my open heart petri putrid gush.

I am a spore. 

If ever you, my dearly dead, have doubted me, then come

and tell me of it now.

I invoke cloture and withstand you. 

The mint grows thick and wild around my ankles, the lemongrass

saws at my calves. 

I do not bleed. 

Who I am when I am just remains, regrubs, regains.

Moldy, a plethora of life. Who

can tame me now? 

Already, without you, I am a long dark highway:
a journey, taken alone, at great risk.
So many rules, as we grew, hemmed us in:
don’t shout, don’t run, don’t cuss, don’t blush, don’t show.
Now we must be encouraged,
like so many little birds,
to fall or fly or sing, or other foreign things.
So I head west, alone:
a pair of bright lights, climbing and falling among the mountains.
The steep inclines, the tree line, pines.
clinging fog, sticky and multiplying,
folding the mountaintops into the sky,
all but evangelical.
We were easier then: we are dying, now.
Bury me here in the limey dirt:
with cups and bowls and spoons and soap,
mint leaves and the dozen ways we call the moon.
Open your dark coal heart,
and let me find my way home.