A queer angel steps

forward in her flowing robe.

There she stands

over Bethesda Fountain:

“She ain’t no human being.”*

Her fingers lift

as she grazes the air.

The hands of policemen

check IDs,

“God save the Queen.”

The 19th century angel holds Lilies in her hand

like customers of The Patch;

Daisies, Roses, Carnations, Mums, and Gladioli

held in hands and mouths in the police station until

the shackles fell, until the arrested bloomed.

“We’re the flowers in the dustbin.”

Each conversion “therapy” practice:

Each grave with an unchanged name:

Each person arrested for dressing in drag:

Each person scared to go into a gendered bathroom:

Each funeral parlor that did not let in a person who died because of AIDS:

“Oh God save history.”

Paint faces, put on heels.

Walk the unjust laws out of

this country’s system.

“We love our Queen.”

Queer people aren’t once-contaminated waters:

blessed in 1842. Even before 1973,

Queer people weren’t diseased.

“Oh, Lord, God have mercy.”

Drink! From under her wings.

The cherubs, underfoot, know

God gives queer people wings.

“We’re the future.”

*In The Patch, a lesbian and gay bar in California owned by Lee Glaze, “God Save the Queen” was

played on the jukebox when police entered the bar as a signal for the customers to have time to comply to discriminatory laws. “God Save the Queen,” written by Sex Pistols, was released in 1977; the arrests

happened in 1968. I felt the song of the same name taken out of context was a good representation of

unjust arrests that were happening around this time.