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The man on the bus calls me
a faggot, the effort of his hatred
peppering his brow with sweat,
and I wonder what gave me away.
I’m on my way to see my love,
cradling a grocery store bouquet
in my arms. The stems begin
to wilt in my suffocating grip.
I don’t want to tell you what
he said next, how he screamed
at me and the other faggots, the ways
he fantasized about our mutilation,
how the other men watched
and grinned like it was all a joke.
I don’t want to admit I was afraid.
If my body were as dangerous
as a man’s fear of it, I would
arm myself with my self and kill
the cop in my head. I would burn
down the cages. I would rob
enough banks to buy a cottage
to share with everyone I’ve ever
called home. Later, my love will hold
me while I cry silently, will refuse
to turn away from the snot and salt
leaking out of me. If I remove
the man from this poem, what will
be left? The flowers, exclamations
of yellow as sweet as late summer
sunshine. The way the other faggots
on the bus asked, “You okay?”
made unstrangers by circumstance,
finding ways to make each other
laugh. How my love sliced me
strawberries in the shape of hearts
while I unraveled in their bed,
their love the answer to a question
I didn’t even know I had asked.