Hide in plain sight:

dye your hair blonde,

claim to be a “Black Irish,”

 

product of the mating

between a Spanish

Armada survivor and

 

a lassie.  Drink California

wine without shuddering,

without tasting your people’s

 

blood.  Go on wine tours

to network with alcoholics

who turn pork barrel

 

politics into silk boxers.

Pretend that English is what

Jesus spoke in Bethlehem.

 

Praise FBI hunks without

outing them. Praise old men

as if they can still make sons.

 

Rane Arroyo was a gay, Puerto Rican performance artist, playwright and widely published poet born in Chicago (1954). He published over sixteen books and chapbooks; most recently, the University of Arizona Press published his selected poems, “The Buried Sea” (2008). He died unexpectedly in Toledo, Ohio, on May 7, 2010.