Because You’re Queer

You know the straight man in your building

who walks to the door where you

and two neighbors are talking

is deliberately not talking to you

after he joins the conversation—instead

only talks to the two neighbors who are married but cool

with you and you think how lucky you are

that these good people are good

with you and your fag-

ness and because you know things about queer shame

you can’t believe you still want the approval

of straight people and then you’re a little mad at them

for making you feel that way

though you know it’s not their fault.

The straight guy is just back from Europe

he tells the husband and the wife asks

when he got back and because you’re a person,

too, you ask if he was there for work

though you know he wasn’t

because you know he’s a carpenter

and not one good enough to be invited to Europe.

When he looks at you

you see his annoyance that he has to speak to you

but maybe realizes because the couple likes you

he has to pretend he’s okay with you

so he softens to an insincere softness: he was there for fun,

he says, he and a friend go once a year

while his wife visits her family in Colombia.

He basically has two months of vacation

because his son, too, is away

at military school he tells your neighbors

and you nod with them enthusiastically

because it’s cool that he got into that school

and one day everyone will thank him for his service

though you’ve seen how he talks to his girlfriend in the hallway.

Still you say something stupid about how you’re a professor

and know that school is a good school

as if only professors know what a good school is

and the truth is you’ve never heard of it

but for some reason you need him to like you—

maybe so he won’t, at some point, drunkenly knock on your door

like he did the elderly neighbors

who accidentally blocked his car in with their car

and he needed to get to goddamn work.

You don’t need his approval

but you ask for it because you do need it

or want it and wonder

how many more times you’ll walk back

into that middle-school locker room

where the popular boys stand behind you and snicker

as you take off your shirt with your back to them

not wanting anyone to see your chest

not wanting anyone,

even yourself, to look at your body.