Queer, I untether my father swindles sorrow mom sorrows mirrors Bible-belt state, weep. Your children die under foot: martyrs for plains’ drought poem : queer body Lines usurp skin, walk freely, roll the stone away

Pulse should be bloodbeat— laughter metronome heart ode Unbullet my sibs! Why does every Queer baptism end with rooftop kiss? Anoint us alive! let my poems be unburden; occult birdsongs: genderfuck too-ree god said queer thee earth let thy children sow Eden bodies unbridled AVI HARJO star fell too young, sky-streak-flame found Orion-belt home This here poem wakes before death, stares down barrel what is man to saint you, godless-gender dumb-drunk indoctrination Lo! Let there be Light! NEX BENEDICT red clay thrown, stomped-out grog now greenware seeking blaze mullet-cut, gender- bent lipstick under moustache Oklahomo graze Senators say die Okie queers say watch me burn your house to the ground

We dyke, we fag: dance Prairie Tumbleweed Realness Crack wheat kiss her earth police presence calls attention to Queer martyr sty-sanctioned murder poem, queer mother, woke me to myself – wildborn ungendered joy – reap!

This poem references Nex Benedict and Avi Harjo who are both trans/nonbinary minors from Oklahoman (this author’s home state) who recently took their own lives due to the violence toward our community exacerbated by the Trump presidency and his followers.

Pulse is in reference to the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.