after Frank O’Hara and June 24, 2022

It’s a beautiful day to be
terrified, don’t you think?
Everything outside looks more
alive than usual. This morning,
with the bird songs, people with
ovaries call out to their own
kind. They gather bluebells,
poppies, daisies and baby’s breath -
flowers that are equally beautiful in life
and death. Am I the asshole
for hating straight women
who wish that they were gay? Or
a hypocrite who secretly knows
queerness is convenient, too.
From the pendulum of my
desire, honey drips like rays of
sun. My hands are two insects
in the resin of their lusts.
Can we call it a shotgun wedding
if what we’re expecting is an
overruling? Where men make babies,
I make music — deep in the bells of
her body. Every longing takes
its toll. Dear straight women,
the terror will always lie in
acting on what you want —
it never matters what you want.

*An earlier version of this poem appeared, in print, in the American Poetry Review (Vol. 52, No. 5, September/October 2023).