Can I translate myself to you?
Do I need to?
Do I want to?

When I say crip I mean flesh-proof power, flash mob sticks and wheels in busy intersections, model mock.

When I say disability I mean all the brilliant ways we get through the planned fractures of the world.

When I say living in America today I mean thriving and unwelcome, the irony of the only possible time and place.

When I say cure I mean erase. I mean eradicate the miracle of error.

When I say safe I mean no pill, no certified agency, no danger to myself court order, no supervisory setting, no nurse, can protect or defend or save me, if you deny me power.

When I say public transportation I mean we all pay, we all ride, we all wait. As long as necessary.

When I say basic rights I mean difficult curries, a fancy-knotted scarf, a vegetable garden. I mean picking up a friend at the airport. I mean two blocks or a continent with switches or sensors or lightweight titanium, well-maintained and fully-funded. I mean shut up about charity, the GNP, pulling my own weight, and measuring my carbon footprint. I mean only embrace guaranteed can deliver real equality.

When I say high-quality personal assistance services I mean her sure hands earning honorably, and me eating and shitting without anyone's permission.

When I say nondisabled I mean all your precious tricks.

When I say nondisabled privilege I mean members-only thought processes, and the violence of stairs.

By dancing I mean of course dancing. We dance without coordination or hearing, because music wells through walls. You're invited, but don't do us any favors.

When I say sexy I mean our beautiful crip bodies, broken or bent, and whole. I mean drooling from habit and lust. I mean slow, slow.

When I say family I mean all the ways we need each other, beyond your hardening itch and paternal property rights, our encumbering love and ripping losses. I mean everything ripples.

When I say normal I don't really mean anything.

When I say sunset, rich cheese, promise, breeze, or iambic pentameter, I mean exactly the same things you mean.

Or, when I say sunset I mean swirling orange nightmare. When I say rich cheese I mean the best food I can still eat, or else I mean poverty and cholesterol. When I say promise I mean my survival depends on crossed digits. When I say breeze I mean finally requited desire. When I say iambic pentameter, I mean my heart's own nameless rhythm.

When I say tell the truth I mean complicate. Cry when it's no longer funny.

When I say crip solidarity I mean the grad school exam and the invisible man. I mean signed executive meetings, fighting for every SSI cent.

When I say challenges to crip solidarity I mean the colors missing from grant applications, the songs absent from laws. I mean that for all my complaints and victories, I am still sometimes more white than crip.

When I say anything I know the risk: You will accuse me of courage. I know your language all too well, steeped in its syntax of overcoming adversity and limited resources. When I say courage I mean you sitting next to me, talking, both of us refusing to compare or hate ourselves.

When I say ally I mean I'll get back to you. And you better be there.

Laura Hershey
November 2010

A fundamental part of being queer is being erased, I explain at
            the outset of my talk this basic premise requiring 5.7 
            seconds to sink into the minds of my delegation 

At the nightmare board meeting that has derailed my dreams, I’m
            dashing in cobalt suit, white pocket square, a humble 
            multi-tasker before a great glass boardroom, clicker in hand,
            shoulder pads to the wind, I let it rip, my modest proposal: 

                                     STRAIGHT GAY CULTURE
            Savior stories of access and entitlement everyone can love  

It’s already here! I warble, juggling my wagers in perfect sync,
            Big nonsense proclamations followed by primal screams
            always get them to their feet,  

I have in my possession the latest in a genre I call gauche rive
            gauche: a new straight fantasy novel about dead white 
            lesbians written under lockdown while sunbathing in the south of
            France, 

My board members get it—guaranteed mainstream reviews!—but
            they’re genuinely charmed by the true star of the author
            photo, the poetess’s tiny background husband in swim trunks
            near the sea,  

Letters of support stream in from the usual best-sellers, To whom it may
            concern: Our transphobic books feature exciting transgender
            protagonists, more huzzahs from the board,  

Ever tearful, never fearful, I grab my trophy and confess, I myself was
            obliged to attend the transgender studies panel organized by
            cis studies, so I ask, Does tour always mean tourism? 

Rhetorical flourish before I walk them through the numbers, A
            figure in Kevlar rolls in the coffee cart, which is how I know
            I’m screwed, 

                                     Everyone gets shoved in a van at some point
                                     and

                                                            gets

                                                                     dropped

                                               off

            As the world turns                  gays lie awake 
                      gagging on fake episodes                   the only time we cry 

Nervously I apply                     a stick and tint 
            because I’m fabulous and I’m about to meet my maker! 

Between argonauts and incels            I leopard crawl her whereabouts
            Windex squeaks on a secret 
                                                swaddled in her No Razzismo tote bag 

Unmistakable alarm, is it not?             So I twist 
                      as in meme                                          and freeze 

“You are ideal and failure, sentiment and lure,” says my maker,
            a distant relative of Pierre Louÿs, whose ghost stands just
            beyond her on the shore, gripping his sun bleached conch over his
            head, scrawled upon it:                       bed death is a lie 

200 years later the bottle floats back, rolls of film inside sloshed in
            gin, bitter outtakes from tar, from rent, from what I realize is
            theirs and always has been 

This is after after after 

            The fundament of our relations is soft 

They creep over us like mist 

            But in the future          when distance fails

                       gays awake softer still

That winter was long and full of records: 
         snow up to our chests and the chill deep in our cells, 
                  the forever rain and with it, the mud that dripped 
                           like sap and became a part of us.

         Then came days of 
                  grass as soft as fleece 
                           bees flying like comets and goats 
                                     rotating around the creekbend we followed up until

                                              water water water was all we could hear, 
                                      until wild wild wildflowers were all we could see— 
                    a galaxy of them twinkling 
                            their bright violets and yellows and oranges,

a reminder of what has endured 
        what has always been 
                   what is now ready to be seen.

—

Like a lizard, I bathe           naked on a rock  

          and let the south wind and let the waterfall

and let the buckeye            lead me.  

The horizon is a line I cannot yet  say.

       The screen shows me what I haven’t seen in months,  

what others see: curves and a blur.

       Not a thing, but any thing. 

Finally, I am the animal that I am.