A Queerification

A Queerification

By Regie Cabico

 

—for Creativity and Crisis at the National Mall

 

queer me

shift me

transgress me

tell my students i'm gay

tell chick fil a i'm queer

tell the new york times i'm straight

tell the mail man i'm a lesbian

tell american airlines

i don't know what my gender is

like me

liking you

like summer blockbuster armrest dates

armrest cinematic love

elbow to forearm in the dark

humor me queerly

fill me with laughter

make me high with queer gas

decompress me from centuries of spanish inquisition

& self-righteous judgment

like the blood my blood

that has mixed w/ the colonizer

& the colonized

in the extinct & instinct to love

bust memories of water & heat

& hot & breath

beating skin on skin fluttering

bruise me into vapors

bleed me into air

fly me over sub-saharan africa & asia & antarctica

explode me from the closet of my fears

graffiti me out of doubt

bend me like bamboo

propose to me

divorce me

divide me into your spirit 2 spirit half spirit

& shadow me w/ fluttering tongues

& caresses beyond head

heart chakras

fist smashing djembes

between my hesitations

haiku me into 17 bursts of blossoms & cold saki

de-ethnicize me

de-clothe me

de-gender me in brassieres

& prosthetic genitalias

burn me on a brazier

wearing a brassiere

in bitch braggadocio soprano bass

magnificat me in vespers

of hallelujah & amen

libate me in halos

heal me in halls of femmy troubadors

announcing my hiv status

or your status

i am not afraid to love you

implant dialects as if they were lilacs

in my ear

medicate me with a lick & a like

i am not afraid to love you

so demand me

reclaim me

queerify me

 

About the Poet

 

Regie Cabico's work appears in over 30 anthologies including The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks, 2003), Chorus & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999), and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (Henry Holt and Company, 1994). He is the co-editor of Flicker & Spark: A Contemporary Anthology of Queer Poetry and Spoken Word (Lowbrow Press, 2013), nominated for a 2014 Lambda Literary Award. He is the Youth Program Coordinator for Split this Rock Poetry Festival.

 

🏳️‍🌈 LGBT POETS FOR PRIDE MONTH 🏳️‍🌈