Past Life Regression: Overture

Glamor!––beyond the door ajar. Everyone rolls the red carpet out for a lavender shoe, a fresh beam of starlight stepping like fire into the dark cupped hand of a party. The current body repels men––however handsomely some man approaches my vignette, iris twinkling against my own, as though he can see through the game I play with time. I'm handed a glass of champagne. Like the good ghost I am, I drink past the glass shards, pretend to know my way around a big house. It is decades separating. It is a fun way to pass an afternoon in isolation. A voice guides me into a beyond and I follow it until the door, large and round and wooden, ignites. Jealous of the fantasy, I want to spend eternity returning to who I was. Can I recognize my own hands as they accept a stranger's outstretched welcome? Suppose I really was here. Is there a place I want to escape from? The party rolls on until it shatters like a good dream does.

The Fruit

Even I am drinking a man beer. The daiquiri is gay

and strawberry, according to the men who sing

karaoke with their arms around each other’s sunburns.

I never want to be a woman. I do want to be the guy

who enjoys a beer and spills some on her dress

because she takes too big a sip. Never the fruity

blended cocktail––I already love a girl and don't

need to be called faggy. If I gave you my hand

would you take it and make me the happiest man

in the world, she sings, up on the stage in the arcade

bar, and the retirees clap from their worn-in chairs

and the waiter brings another daiquiri to the man

with a wife and child and several guns in his truck

at any given moment. I smile so lovingly 

at my serenade. Yes, I'll take your hand and yes, 

I will be genderless and glowing in the blacklights. 

Everyone will stomp on the sticky floors and shoot 

their straw wrappers at the dude across the table 

and I'll be the happiest thing here.