It’s an automatic response
to dance in the shadows,
to perform for myself,
to say—to think—I’m straight,
tongue tripping on the word
like rubbing two storm clouds together
in search of a rainbow.
It’s an automatic response to be the norm
and hold otherness at arm’s length.
I am the echo in the glass: almost there
and not quite queer enough.
*
Kit Willett is a bisexual poet, English teacher, and executive editor of the Aotearoa poetry journal Tarot. His debut poetry collection, Dying of the Light, was published by Wipf and Stock imprint Resource Publications in 2022.