We go out butch dancing

Poets and lovers

Get lost in a vertical groove

Scale the room of eyes legs glitter

I ask

                                                  are you a dancer?

                                                  ultimately, they say.

Beats pop

soda or salt

rush against the impulse to stand still and stare

eat up gorge the sight of queers—

I didn’t know I was hungry

Until I

clash bodies anonymous brushing beating balance of too late wrong way wrong time

     right girl boy queer no after you.
We’re standing around talking about Janelle Monae

                                                  I like what comes out of her mouth.

                                                  Oh, yeh.
Unsure

it’s almost a two-step dad-dance

two-step Highway Hotel cover band booze dance

except that my Dad is an excellent dancer.

In our tangle dipping down passing through

I keep time in my legs bent knees and wide thighs with insides against outsides each

     other all the loose tightness of denim vs flesh always busting pouring stuffing

                                                  —like that time

                                                  I heard you pop.
Our bodies might move differently better

If we were some other kind of trans-queers

And I would need sex or something like it to really get to the bend of my body to go

     to the soft edge of my body to stop staring

But I watch her instead distracted elegant nervous

And think about the poem I will write when this is done

And it will be years until we are here together again

poets dancing watching more beautiful more glitter more butch more daddy fag dyke

     femme boy power and

your motorcycle grip revs

arms stretched out

hips locked

somehow loose

beneath denim

beneath the cloth of a week of talking reading diet coke but not diet coke anymore

     just soda water with lime or tea or coffee and

conversation

shouted ear to ear because it’s so fucking loud

they ask me

                                                  Who is your mother?

            and it’s complicated but of course not

I sort of shrug and move back and forward

a blonde femme spills over me

hangs from my shoulders

                                                  Do you have any MDMA?

                                                  Sorry, no.
                                                  Must be the bandanna, Al. Screams dealer.

                                                  Yeh, must be.
Two cops stand on the mezzanine above the bar

watching the queers on show

just the gentle presence of the state come to visit the party     which we know is not gentle

we know is not soft butch boy            is not

hard femme top girl

has none of their charisma

has none of the bells

does not moan like Saturday morning

of slow fuck love I give you

none of your gentle mouth.

                                                  That’s’ Sydney, he says.
The drag show is about to start

music and lights come up down and beat

we position ourselves in a curve by the front of the stage

our bodies all loosely connected touching here and there

in the split

recognition

the moment before articulation:

you got the best of my love.