Relationships with friends, family members and lovers; what to do with one’s queer femme life; why and why and why…we queer femmes crave moments of respite where we can recalibrate, breathe, sit in peaceful contemplation. I hope this poem I wrote for my butch husband early on in our relationship, will afford you one sweet moment.
The Hard Answers
The hard answers must
lie somewhere between
brook trout and mourning doves.
Elusive and sweet,
the wild fish flick their tails
and vanish in the dappled water.
Pursuing them through brambles,
you might go gloriously in
over your waders. You might
hook one, lose one,
not get one at all.
While back in the burbs,
evening and dawn,
the mourning doves chortle
their comforting song:
Close your eyes, close your eyes;
open them now, open.
The hard answers swim in and out
of focus, enter our thoughts when
we’re dreaming, escape us at dawn
only to reappear again after
we’ve made love, fought,
laughed so hard
we’re both weeping.
The hard answers can’t be anticipated
or rushed or pulled from nowhere.
They gleam at us briefly,
a ray of sunshine catching
the brook trout’s fin.
They steady us through the days,
cooing: Time to sleep;
time to rise.
Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.
The Total Femme 