knit hats wait idly
for fridays and sundays
when the food runs out
and i'm forced to leave.

bought at goodwill,
price forgotten.
it has
a lingering smell of foreign soap.

i wanted it
for the color
and for the soft feel.
a stitched pelt, perhaps,
from some kind unknown beast.

inside:
an umbrella,
two pens,
probably a book and a 50 peso coin.

woven so tightly,
with its natural grease,
the rain can't get in.

not my first dress.
owned or worn.

the first
must have been
a princess's gown,
upstairs at emma's...
my mother arrived.
to pick
me
up,
and i hurried to change.

then, again,
with my sister.
her in a button-down,
we stood by the road,
a comic reversal.

your white dress.
(thank you)
with the tights
i'd bought
myself.

and the light blue one
with pockets
i wore to the party.

now look at this, a precedent:
my grandmother (right)
escorting her sister.

first as comedy,
then, something else.

"this is what you get!"
a stranger's kid
said to me,
handing me this bracelet.

i came out as gay
at fifteen.
my first crush
a boy in psychology class
(i got a D — his
shoulders were
tan,
and i sat behind him);

then my best friend
(best? friend?),
i went
poetaster
to the street outside his house,

queer asphalt vandal '08-'10.

for five years,
i kissed no one,
knowing whom i wanted to kiss

a work in progress