PRIDE TIME

I'll miss the Pride Parade in NYC tomorrow, but I was at the first one in Washington DC in 1972 after I had come out as "gay" for humane and political and historic reasons, since previously I'd always considered myself "straight" (though I always rejected labels and still think they are mostly problematic) after having had my first sexual and romantic relationships with men, including a part-time affair with a beautiful man named Greg Millard. I wrote this poem to him back then. He eventually died of AIDs, as did others I was lovers with (somehow it passed me by). By the late 1970s I had returned to being involved sexually and romantically with just women, but I am proud of all of my past relationships including with men and women both "cis" and "trans" as well as those who didn't label themselves or would now be considered "fluid" (as I considered myself now and then back in the day, but didn't have the word for it, I identified myself in my bio in one gay poetry anthology back then as "pansexual") and have since 1972 considered myself part of the "queer" community, even if some of that community doesn't see me that way.



WATCHING YOU WALK AWAY

For Greg Millard

Today
your back, cocked hat, thick clothes for cold
the way you turned around to look again for
what? It wasn’t there last night
We were there, ‘it’ wasnt, why,      why not

The world is all around us, even at night, in bed
in each others arms
distilled & injected into the odor we leave on each others
backs & thighs, between the knots & shields of all we lay
down in the dark to pick up in the morning
I like your brown eyes when you talk
you know who you are, I like your knowing this
maybe that’s not enough

Let’s talk, go to plays, see each other sometimes just to
see each other
If we lie down in each others bodies again
let it be for the music we hold
not the music we might make


(C) 2018 Michael Lally in Another Way To Play