The way I Love them, these women who cross
my path and double cross history, is
within the population of the street; novelty.
Cross dressing. The way I love them
is a new babe naked in the arms of my world.
I see them, cigarettes long as straws
in mouths of shepherds, new too, to this place
so plasticized. Plastic surgery to the sound
of men in and out of these women’s lives.
It ill behoves me to stand here and love them
for whom they're supposed to be, me
and my choir of angels singing out
the glory of what we have lost.
At every celebration my grandfather
inserted a knife into the nape of a bull
chosen out of many, as children built
wood fires and women prepared to milk
and clean the innards of the beast.
When the feast began every difference
was wiped off the happy face of the village,
and we would eat and dance and live that day.
Every time I get off at the Plaisance station
and see those women pass by in their stilettos
and singed voice boxes, I wipe my face
with the palm of my hand and know I am them,
my sisters from another world, another mother,
but who are me, in everything but trademark.
So much need to inject life into persons again.

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