1987
Dream as Sylvia Witts Vitale
Artefact: A black and white newspaper photograph, in the Boston Gay Community News, June 14-20 issue, 1987. Caption: ‘Sylvia Witts Vitale (left) and Joan Nestle make eye contact during the Lesbian Smut Forum in Boston.’
Can sing it
Can sing a PHD in it
Can quote me singing it, later, in a PDF, if y’all like
Can dangle a long drop earring off it
Complex, multi-part
Can get a Renaissance groove on right to it
Push oversize glasses
Coral, clear
Up the bridge of it
Flirt with it
Can lay down on the carpet with it
Cm’here
Teasing an atmosphere from it
Make an invitation to
Yes
Get on top of it
Here, with me
Come on, try it
Let’s head out into the garden
Into the deep grass and the wet leaves
In search of it
Make the whole hundred-dyke hall
Belly-laugh with it
Seal it in a Tupperware
Tupperware-like
Drop it down beneath Heresies and Sweet Sensations
Swing it up onto the shoulder
Out onto the Avenue
Rounding to the intersection at Boulevard
Oven-grill sun baking the sidewalk
Signs bright loud
Plastic shimmering
Toasted bricks
Descending at Sutphin
Every step hotter
Fingers grazing grimy tiles
Palm dancing on the zinging handrail
Radiating
Assuredly marching down into
An inverse heaven
A regular workday joy
Up tight against other summer bodies
Pressed close with these strangers
Swinging west and north
It knocking, bag rocking against the damp small of the back
Knees creasing
Arms pulled high above heads
Fingers clasping
Can sing that
With eyes closed
Involuntarily
That slide as the subway gasps around a curve
That fat line
That high note
Can sing you that orgasmitron
Can sing that precision
Naming it, precisely
All the way around the block and to Paul Lane
Singing it loud
A riff releasing
Lifting up in a laugh
Catching the air with the JFK planes
Lapping the pond at Baisley Park
Skimming the short afro of a tall kid
James’s height
James’s age
Wide pants, sneakers
Fishing
Waiting waiting for something to catch
Line held out expectantly as they
Crystallise into a pixel cluster
Reeled in
Hooked by the Department of Parks and Recreation
But it’s not
No no, we good
It’s in the air already, see
In the jazz
In the brightness and the space between molecules
In the nitrogen, oxygen
In the Cee Oh Two
Arrrrrr-gon
In the vapourised water
That comes from kisses, y’all
That comes from the places between us
The sweat in your panties
You know that
From joy
Can sing a PHD in it
Can quote me singing it, later, in a PDF, if y’all like
Can dangle a long drop earring off it
Complex, multi-part
Can get a Renaissance groove on right to it
Push oversize glasses
Coral, clear
Up the bridge of it
Flirt with it
Can lay down on the carpet with it
Cm’here
Teasing an atmosphere from it
Make an invitation to
Yes
Get on top of it
Here, with me
Come on, try it
Let’s head out into the garden
Into the deep grass and the wet leaves
In search of it
Make the whole hundred-dyke hall
Belly-laugh with it
Seal it in a Tupperware
Tupperware-like
Drop it down beneath Heresies and Sweet Sensations
Swing it up onto the shoulder
Out onto the Avenue
Rounding to the intersection at Boulevard
Oven-grill sun baking the sidewalk
Signs bright loud
Plastic shimmering
Toasted bricks
Descending at Sutphin
Every step hotter
Fingers grazing grimy tiles
Palm dancing on the zinging handrail
Radiating
Assuredly marching down into
An inverse heaven
A regular workday joy
Up tight against other summer bodies
Pressed close with these strangers
Swinging west and north
It knocking, bag rocking against the damp small of the back
Knees creasing
Arms pulled high above heads
Fingers clasping
Can sing that
With eyes closed
Involuntarily
That slide as the subway gasps around a curve
That fat line
That high note
Can sing you that orgasmitron
Can sing that precision
Naming it, precisely
All the way around the block and to Paul Lane
Singing it loud
A riff releasing
Lifting up in a laugh
Catching the air with the JFK planes
Lapping the pond at Baisley Park
Skimming the short afro of a tall kid
James’s height
James’s age
Wide pants, sneakers
Fishing
Waiting waiting for something to catch
Line held out expectantly as they
Crystallise into a pixel cluster
Reeled in
Hooked by the Department of Parks and Recreation
But it’s not
No no, we good
It’s in the air already, see
In the jazz
In the brightness and the space between molecules
In the nitrogen, oxygen
In the Cee Oh Two
Arrrrrr-gon
In the vapourised water
That comes from kisses, y’all
That comes from the places between us
The sweat in your panties
You know that
From joy