Boys, cackling on your safari of my faggotry,
your cameras out like cocksure paparazzi,
tell yourselves my chatoyant sequin skirt belongs
only on the vixens with vaginas,
tell yourselves my lavender lip-glossed D.S.L.’s
aren’t delectable despite the barbwire of my boy-stubble,
tell yourselves the indomitable whites of your wife-beaters
are every dude’s desideratum:
_________________________you don’t make me
wish I were in bed, genderless and unseen and eating Doritos; you make me
protract my neck like an award-winning peacock, you make me
sissy my hips like my dick’s unchafeable.
—You’re cackling still. It isn’t inspirational to watch
a tranny leading a one-tranny parade?
—No, you penis gallery,
I won’t murder me, but I’m mortified
I don’t adore my own cockblocking color-blocking
so completely I don’t need to check
your stares for a second opinion.

 

Jacqueline Sabbagh