Matt McKinzie: For Queer Posterity
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
For Queer Posterity
we forget our
Elders though our
lapse is far from
lucid
we balm
Their bodies in cathode
ray screens and social
media stories
we think we
honor Their toil but only
flatten Them into
honorifics
how well we know
are misspelt, misattributed,
mistaken
what’s not dissimilar when
misplacing our
somatic sanctity
who in the present
dissolves into hedonistic
resolve
where we absolve
our selves
of responsibility
when basking in
a fleeting lover’s early
morning dew
why, then, do we cry
poison, just as quickly
thoughtlessly
I wish for us
all, a thousand
fleeting lovers
whose amorous
embrace may pull
us out of our
slack and flattened
state, so we may
pull our
Elders from Their
soil, and finally
take a page
from Their
divine
and forgotten book
Bathtub Ruminations
my whole life
seems close
but no cigar
so I’ll just sit here
clouding the bathwater
Ma drew
last millennium
and drink tepid Salada
from a floral mug
and fashion myself
more self-possessed
than I’ll ever be
The Circle
I.
The shred of a Stratocaster
like death knells in a
church tower
beckons to my blank palette
droning as you in voke
e voke
the composite:
math rockmeetsAmerican Utopia
II.
a trellis
for string lights and black
mold, the Circle stands unvarnished
and I remember you clearly
gazing through my jelly soma
‘fore pushing my coat beyond
the half-wall
so I ran into snow,
where all the rejects go
III.
the Circle
feeds itself
without you
Matt McKinzie is a writer and filmmaker. He graduated from Emerson College in May 2021 with a B.A. in Visual and Media Arts and a Minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In addition to Yes, Poetry, his work has been featured at WickedQueer: Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival, the Boston Student Film Festival, PopMatters, and EM Magazine, where he worked as Editorial Director from 2019 to 2021. You can follow him on Instagram (@matt.mckz) and Twitter (@filmmaker_matt).
