The instructor said,

    Go home and write
    a page tonight.
    And let that page come out of you—
    Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you're older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Epithalamion? Not too long back
I was being ironic about “wives.”
It’s very well to say, creation thrives
on contradiction, but that’s a fast track
shifted precipitately into. Tacky,
some might say, and look mildly appalled. On
the whole, it’s one I’m likely to be called on.
Explain yourself or face the music, Hack.
No law books frame terms of this covenant.
It’s choice that’s asymptotic to a goal,
which means that we must choose, and choose, and choose
momently, daily. This moment my whole
trajectory’s toward you, and it’s not losing
momentum. Call it anything we want.

^{for Nica, Mary, Ryan, et al.}

A friend on a rival team confesses  
they’ve always been into it.  
As a kid, they locked themselves in a closet  
to read Trivial Pursuit cards.  
They wanted to know everything. 

Their team is named Shooting Nudes. 
We are Butch Believers.  
The next category is Famous Dykes.  
The whole bar is packed and smells like  
bike sweat and Cosmo slushies.  

Our best guess is that it was Audre Lorde  
in ’89 advocating for Palestine.  
On the fly, we struggle to spell  
Stormé DeLarverie, but we’re hoping  
bad handwriting hides it, huddling closer 

so no one hears our answers.  
Meanwhile, the National Park Service  
erases the letter T in twenty places  
from the Stonewall Monument website.  
Slime mold? Whiptail lizards? The category is  

Queer Ecology. Now, a federal directive 
threatens to cut gender-affirming  
care for youth in our city.  
The category is Gay for Pay.  
Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Hilary Swank.  

Cleverness I know can feel exclusive  
but here I lean into my friends’ literacies, 
their wisdoms my shelter. 
The forty somethings know the local lore,  
the bygone parties: Donny’s, Pegasus,  

Operation Sappho, while The Gen Z kids ace 
the tech round, scribbling the name of  
a translesbian hacktivist on a canceled sci-fi show.  
It turns out being an autodidact is  
the unspoken prerequisite for being queer in America. 

Will we nerd ourselves into futures  
of intergenerational knowing?  
In our time, the Press 3 option  
of the youth suicide hotline 
was created and deleted.  

In booths with curly fries, 
we turn to each other and say:  
Kiki. Bussy. Bulldagger.  
Kitty Tsui. Vaginal (Crème) Davis.  
Truths our bodies internalized arise  

in quick crescendos like this one: 
Bernard Mayes founded  
the first suicide prevention hotline 
in the country. I know this because  
he was a dean at my college and the first 

audaciously out educator I ever met.  
Monthly he held a donut hour, 
I was closeted then, so I showed up early 
to squeeze onto a cramped couch 
and listen: In 1961, he leafletted streets 

with a phone number safe to dial 
and then waited by a red rotary phone 
certain that many would call.  
The category is Gay Rage.  
Name the band and the song: 

Bikini Kill, “Suck My Left One”  
Bronski Beat, “Why?”  
Princess Nokia, “Tomboy” 
Planningtorock, “Get Your  
Fckin Laws Off My Body”