Not like a child knowing nothing of adult urges
Not like a youth swept along in a flood of desires
Being older with decades of past experiences
I welcome all the variations of gender in our world.
I see the blend of female and male forms in each of us
Unique combinations all different and beautiful
Seen at a distance perhaps as an ambiguous shape
Our age and gender identity suggested in our outline.
I was born into a binary construct that confused me
Responding to people young and old as individuals
Each with the potential to laugh and play games
Without regard to divergent pronouns attached to them.
I was a naive teenager reading James Baldwin
Understanding only that his characters felt love
And my favorite poet Jack Spicer touched me
Without my knowing about his sexual orientation.
As it should be, I suppose, in a closeted time
Baldwin crying out to Go Tell It On The Mountain
Spicer's poetry infused with love and hidden meanings
Before the struggle for gay rights broke through.
How much better for children and adults today
Than for me as a boy hearing my father’s homophobic slurs
He who sat speechless watching Alan Turing in "The Enigma"
When I took him to Broadway many years later.
Modern love does not compel human procreation
Freeing us to embrace everyone with open arms
Though the forces of reaction would take us back
The right to be ourselves will surely prevail.
