Cottonwood River Anthology

COTTONWOOD RIVER ANTHOLOGY

Gay Midwestern Realism:
The Death Throes of Romanticism #3

“I am solitary as grass. 
What is it I miss?
Shall I ever find it, 
whatever it is?”
—Sylvia Plath
"Three Women"
__________________

What was it that Sylvia Plath lost—
Why was she only half-conscious of losing it?

I’ve asked myself that same question—
Feeling the way she felt for such a long time

I have to take it this loss is a real one—
Not a rhetorical echoing of a gay man’s cries

Not a queenly yearning that can be dished—
Seeking to dismiss it as simply “diseased”

Viewing being queer as Sodom & Gomorrah—
As original sin, evil, predestination & doom

But what’s a kid growing up in Kansas—
Supposed to know about gay consciousness?

Such fluidity and queenly intelligence—
Surely nothing more serious than a zit?

An adolescent perverse rebelliousness—
At its most profound a mere nocturnal emission?

These "few words" in our tacky bildungsroman—
Multiplied endlessly in all the books, lit crit

Perpetually renewed & self-renewingly perverse—
Convinced I was just full of faggoty nonsense

Prissy pronouncements by pushy-minded—
Wood Bloxom’s sneer at me every morning

Anita B. Rice’s saying she was simply appalled—
Every time I clicked my Magic Ruby Slippers

The raised eyebrows of Coach Sands & Gowdy—
Knowing I lusted after the whole Wrestling Team

And of course the Telepathic Well-Hung Ones—
Reading my filthy, dirty Mind every fucking day

No wonder they treated me so awfully crummy—
From a “healthy” society’s point of view

There’s nothing worse than a small town fag—
A Faggoty Poet on the Prissy Prowl 

And then there were all the cynical faces—
The smirky looks of unimportant boys

They knew I was jealous of what they had—
Especially the butch ones with ten inches