Queen Christina

To celebrate his final Pride, in June,

my friend, lymphatic, thin, and in distress,

managed to dress in drag. He shot the moon:

outstretched, he’d used his dying to think—obsess—

about the Prada pumps, their skin a snake;

the heavy pantyhose, two pair; the moot

but lacy underthings; the makeup, cake,

to overlay his pain. I called him beaut-

i-ful; he said he felt like Greta Garbo

in Queen Christina (our campy interplay);

I countered that he looked more like a hobo-

sexual in heels. We howled. That day,

we never left his Castro flat. His rhinestone

glittered, and everywhere, the smell of cologne.

Source: Breakfast with Thom Gunn (The University of Chicago Press, 2009)