September 28: Tolerant and Loving, Saeed Jones, "Boy in a Whalebone Corset"

The United States is having a difficult time with acceptance these days.  People or color.  Muslims.  Jews.  Gay.  Transgender.  Lesbian.  Bisexual.  Basically, if you happen to be anything but a white Christian male, you are in trouble.

I'd like to believe that my country is better than that.  That soon common sense and compassion will overtake the hatred and bigotry.  However, every time I read the news, I lose a little more faith in the citizens of the United States, and that makes me incredibly sad.

So, tonight, Saint Marty has a poem that reminds him to be tolerant and loving to everyone.

Boy in a Whalebone Corset

by:  Saeed Jones

The acre of grass is a sleeping
swarm of locusts, and in the house
beside it, tears too are mistaken.
thin streams of kerosene
when night throws itself against
the wall, when Nina Simone sings
in the next room without her body
and I’m against the wall, bruised
but out of mine: dream-headed
with my corset still on, stays
slightly less tight, bones against
bones, broken glass on the floor,
dance steps for a waltz
with no partner. Father in my room
looking for more sissy clothes
to burn. Something pink in his fist,
negligee, lace, fishnet, whore.
His son’s a whore this last night
of Sodom. And the record skips
and skips and skips. Corset still on,
nothing else, I’m at the window;
he’s in the field, gasoline jug,
hand full of matches, night made
of locusts, column of smoke
mistaken for Old Testament God.