Poem for Thursday and Baby Deer

Queer
By Frank Bidart

Lie to yourself about this and you will
forever lie about everything.

Everybody already knows everything

so you can
lie to them. That's what they want.

But lie to yourself, what you will

lose is yourself. Then you
turn into them.

*

For each gay kid whose adolescence

was America in the forties or fifties
the primary, the crucial

scenario

forever is coming out—
or not. Or not. Or not. Or not. Or not.

*

Involuted velleities of self-erasure.

*

Quickly after my parents
died, I came out. Foundational narrative

designed to confer existence.

If I had managed to come out to my
mother, she would have blamed not

me, but herself.

The door through which you were shoved out
into the light

was self-loathing and terror.

*

Thank you, terror!

You learned early that adults' genteel
fantasies about human life

were not, for you, life. You think sex

is a knife
driven into you to teach you that.

--------

Uggh, my throat feels worse and my sinuses are driving me crazy and although it was gorgeous out today it's supposed to be nearly 100 degrees by Friday. Adam's girlfriend was nearly driven over by a car on her way home from health class; she came over here because it was closer than home, very shaken, while Adam was at the pool, then he spent the rest of the afternoon with her while Daniel went to play miniature golf with my mother.

I folded laundry while watching Easy Virtue because I was in that sort of a mood. We had some kind of awesome country chicken (well, fake chicken) with raisins, almonds, and tomatoes for dinner, then we watched Dallas which made me so happy by having Sue Ellen, J.R., and Cliff Barnes in a scene together -- those were the days -- then Futurama which made me happy by having a presidential election with an "earth certificate" controversy and Nixon.

Today while walking, in addition to two bunnies sharing a clover patch, I saw a deer with three fawns -- possibly the deer I've been seeing with two fawns plus an adopted addition, I've never seen a deer with triplets -- so I followed them from behind my house across a cul-de-sac, through a neighbor's yard (I went around) into the woods. Spot the bonus bunny in the sadly blurry phone photos: