Frank Bidart - Queer

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.

 

     ...