Queer Nobility

FAIRY, the knotted face shouts
at me this morning from a dented car
racketing along Canal Street.

Stunned, confused, I think
Shouldn’t that be faggot?
and then Do I look like a gay man

in my jeans, boots, corduroy shirt?
The construction worker from
The Village People, maybe.

but c’mon man, fairy
feels to me like princess
and I’m happy to make it my own:

Lezzie Princess…The Duchess
of Dyke…Butch Baroness…
Muff Diver to Her Majesty.









Kali Lightfoot lives and writes in Salem, MA. Her poems and reviews of poetry books have appeared in journals including Lavender Review, Poetry South, Solstice and the anthology Come Shining: Essays and Poems on Writing in a Dark Time. She received an Honorable Mention award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

See another poem from Kali in issue 6.1 here.