While I’m tryna dance in Goodfellows

by Blaine Purcell

 

The white girl in a black tube top takes a break from throwing ass
to It’s Getting Hot in Here to tell me, in the absolute best way,
that I look like Prince. This is a compliment, right?
          What I wouldn’t do to sit naked on a horse in a quiet field
          of white and purple flowers, shave my legs but not my chest
          and still be loved enough to win seven (seven!) Grammy’s.
The sorority’s head of equity and inclusion looks awfully disappointed
when I lean into my friend’s (who is often compared to Zendaya) ear
to complain about how everybody thinks every Black queer
          looks the same and blah blah blah blah and wasn’t I elated
          when the Black dining hall worker told me I looked like Prince,
          then Michael, then Jimi, back-to-back over three days?
I wonder if the girl and the woman see the same Prince or Jimi
or if they know my white mama named me Michael, not after Jackson
but the one whose name means: Who is like God.
          And there ain’t no question mark. I want to be God in the air
          between the admiration in your eyes and the images of the most
          flamboyant men to own a stage in America;
who your mother most certainly listened to, but never listened to.
Ask her. Ask her if she felt Him in those buried falsettos
belting Thriller at the Halloween party where she dressed up as “exotic.”

 

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