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Lani T. Montreal
GENDERED RELATIONS
We are queer.
Not in the way
Queer as Folk is or
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
We have unconventional friendship,
you and I, taking risks
but not in the way
Will and Grace do
playing up gay-straight
sexual tension
on primetime TV.
We trade secrets
when we’re drunk on Chianti
in between reruns of classics
on cable TV, the boundary
between us like unwanted ads
selling gas pain relievers
during scene breaks in Citizen Kane,
color intruding into black and white
but not making gray areas
any clearer.
We meet in brightly lit street corners,
you and I, gender-bending,
but not in the way straight actors
who play transsexuals do,
leaving normal by sequence 32
We make gender
our science experiment,
growing it in controlled biospheres
or leaving it to rot and fester
in dark chemistry lab cabinets.
You say there is no absolute truth,
waxing philosophic midway
through Symphony No. 40
in G Minor, and I, uninspired, wonder:
If you’re right then
what makes a lie a lie?
Whose truth matters when
a woman’s body remembers
what her child-mind
had chosen to forget?
When gender is nothing
but a prison sentence
and the judge is always
a brother of yours?
We are queer this way,
you and I, challenging
perceptions, but not like
Angelina Jolie tongueing
her handsome sib at the Oscar’s,
although it does make me curious
on nights when you call past midnight,
bold with inebriation, and tell me
you love me; or when you wrap
my wet hands in the kitchen towel,
gently turning, like uncooked
spring rolls, our indiscretion
illumined by the light
from the half-open fridge; or
when you knead my tired feet after
a long walk on the littered sidewalks
of Chicago when you would not even
give me a full hug. Afraid perhaps
of what it might arouse? Or fearing
emasculation from a show of
unbridled affection?
It makes me quiver and smile
conjuring cinematic scenes,
no, not those my mother dreamed
for me, even after the discovery
of my woman lover in the closet.
My fantasy does not lead to church
ceremonies or white picket fences.
It comes with no strings attached,
like Gina Gershon molting sexuality
past the rising credits
We are queer this way, you and I,
like low-rise jeans snug around my hips
but letting my ab flab hang and breath,
like tight-ribbed designer sweater
hugging your newly-toned pecs,
we are queer this way, you and I,
and in my dreams
we make babies
born
without
umbilical cords.
© Lani T.
Montreal 2007
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Lani T. Montreal is a writer, teacher, performer, and
rabblerouser, known to kick ass in Scrabble. She has penned six
plays, the latest being the Gift of Tongue, about a young
woman’s journey to reclaim peace through rhythm and rhyme, premiered
at Chicago’s Chopin Theater in December 2004 and featured at the
Chicago Asian Heritage Month Celebrations in May 2005. Her writings
have been published in Canada (Peace Magazine, The ACTivist,
Brownscene, Storefront), in the US (Riksha, Bloodstone,
Filipinas, Mother Tongues, Our Own Voice, Rattle) and the
Philippines (Tibok, Love Gathers All, Sunday Inquirer Magazine).
Her essay, "Poetry and Bonesetting" is included in Pinoy Poetics,
the celebrated poetics anthology of Filipino English-language poets
(Meritage Press 2004). She received the 2001 Samuel Ostrowsky Award
for her memoir, "Summer Rain" and the 1995 JVO Award for Excellence
in Journalism for her Sunday Inquirer Magazine expose,
“Poison in the River.” She's proud to have recently joined the ranks
of underpaid adjunct professors in Chicago, where she lives with her
spouse, three birds, two cats, and a dog. |
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