— Dr. Jane Lilienfeld
Professor of English, Lincoln University, Jefferson City, MO
Author of "Reading Alcoholisms: Theorizing Character and Narrative in Selected Novels of Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf," Macmillan, 1999, winner of a 2000 CHOICE Award.

Writing

Editing

• "Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith"
• Poetry
• Gender Talk radio show - listen here
• "Biphobia" (forthcoming essay with Robyn Ochs) in "Readings for Diversity and Social Justice: An Anthology on Racism, Antisemitism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, and Classism", 2nd edition
• "Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World" Contributor - see book
• Book reviewer, "Harvard Review"
• "Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price" co-wrote a chapter (with Robyn Ochs)
  (Beacon, 1992)
• Other writing (see bio)

"Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith"
Editor, Debra Kolodny
pub. date April 17, 2000

Contributor
• Bi God: Rediscovering an Ancient Self, Marcia Deihl

Listen to GenderTalk segment about book.

"GETTING BI: VOICES OF BISEXUALS AROUND THE WORLD"
Robin Ochs, co-edited with Sarah E. Rowley
Publisher: Bisexual Resources Center (May 31, 2005)

This book contains 184 short personal essays written by people in 32 countries, ranging in age from 15 to 79.

Contributor

"ALL OUR LIVES: A WOMEN'S SONGBOOK"
Publisher: Baltimore Diana Press (1976)

Contains lyrics, melody lines, and guitar chords to more than 60 songs.

Editor

       Domestic Triptych

Morning: Baggy Bra

I wanna wear my baggy bra,
My baggy bra today.
Don’t wanna wear the perky one,
Got nothin’ sharp to say.

I feel just like my baggy bra,
Just for this one day.
You earn your comfort; take a pass.
It’s a baggy kind of day.

Afternoon: The Meeting

Every afternoon
about four o’clock,
birds swoop down to the same two trees
in the playground across the street,
watermelon seeds on
dendrites of thick black ink.
The cat quivers,
green laser eyes fixed on every twitch.
The birds proceed, undaunted,
following Roberts Rules of order.
Ah, but there’s always that
one arrogant sparrow
who keeps on interrupting.

Evening: Love Song to a Cat

It’s Christmas at the home, and
all the women have brand new robes.
Murmuring and grasping the wooden rails,
they pad down the hallways,
“I have a bath today.”
“Did you get your cookie?”

Husbands gone,
no dishes, no jobs,
like nuns they traverse
the honeycombed halls,
moving headlong, but in slow motion,
toward what my Auntie Medge called
That Last Little Room.

Sometimes, like children,
they lose their way in the mazes
that connect them to lunch,
nurses, hairdressers,
the chapel upstairs.

My mother, dressed as always
in a white cotton blouse and slacks,
calls them “my old ladies.”
She’s ninety-six--
not quite like them--
skipping the blather about the Rapture
and bringing flowers and comics
to the Personal Care floor.

They have earned the right
to wear their robes—
the bright shiny crimsons,
the quilted greens and blues—
circling the piano while Ronie plays
“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
once again, and once again.

They have earned
the right to wear their robes,
at Christmas,
early in the evening,
any time they want.

Marcia Deihl 2007

       Time Release Jesus

I fled the church at eight—
in my mind, at least.
My father preached
while I drew
dancing harem girls
and nestled
in my Nana’s lap.

In my fifties,
the old hymns pulled me back,
beckoning with seductive grace
(if we can say that about religion).
They drew me in
and plopped me into a musty wooden pew,

just a short hop
from one Protestant
brand to another
(and I did like the “protest” part).
The hymns were the same
but this was a “welcoming” church
and it welcomed even me,
with my unpredictable pronouns.

I did not join, however.
I was there for a secret reason:
I could only cry
when I sang those old hymns,
while my father lay dying
too slowly
in another state,
of mind, and of place.

But the seeds had been planted for
Time Release Jesus,
and I seem to have had
nothing to do with it.

"We are born into this world naked. All the rest is drag.” - RuPaul

                1

A small town drag queen awakens
a little after noon,
shocked at the feel of the night’s stubble
on her lipstick-streaked chin.

                2

Your mother is sitting at her vanity
(so aptly named),
putting on creams and lotions,
black lashes,
pink shadings,
transforming from Mom into Sweetheart.
You lose her as she turns into this
cool drag queen.

                3

I was a teenage
baby boomer
drag king.
Weren’t you?
Didn’t you wear your father’s white shirt
as you painted the old kitchen porch?

                4

I’m thinking about
Barbara Bush
and her L. L. Beans
butch khaki pants.
She was no Nancy Reagan.
But who of the two
was more of a drag queen?

                5

The night of my senior prom,
I put on fishnet stockings
and my father’s
blue wool Navy jacket.
I felt covered, safe,
like in my band uniform.
When I drove to the gym
and peeked in at the popular kids,
dancing among the paper carnations,
I hated them
and longed for their lives.

You met me later at the seedy small town bar
in your black flowered paisley shirt
and red leather pants.
Nobody noticed a fat girl like me,
but you, my pretty raven-haired boy,
you got all the dirty looks.
Later
you bounded
like a flying squirrel
from the high school roof,
landing with a thump on the top of my car
as the fire you set started to burn.

                6

One Mothers’ Day
my mother and I
watched her favorite Sunday morning show.
Famous authors—-all women—-
cooed about their Mommy’s rooms
where they’d tried on
her silks and heels,
twirling in three-way-mirrors.

I never was a girly girl
with a secret dress-up life,
but my old boyfriend was.
And in a pinch,
when I haven’t done the laundry,
I slip on a pair
of the purple satin panties
he left behind.

Like the boy in the fabled Dutch town,
My new husband stuck his finger in the dyke (me)
To stop the flood.

But the tears still came,
A Niagra roar of sobbing
Into my pillow every day after work
While he sat across the hall,
Listening to the demons of his clients.

They got better; I didn’t.
And unlike that little Dutch boy,
He could not hold back my sea of years,
Tsunamis of rage piled wave on wave.

When the water burst, it flushed his flailing self
On top of the wave and out the door,
While I, the sea itself, was the wave
That dipped down under the deep,
Down, down, to that cold and lightless place
Even before the womb (which at least was warm)
Down to that NO-land of no time, no memory, no energy,
No feeling,
No voice inside, giving orders, picking out earrings,
Telling me what colors I liked the best.

My smile took a terrible Mona Lisa curve
That echoed the smiley face on my green foam hospital slippers.
What were they thinking,
Giving us those fucking things????

For forty days and forty nights
seconds crawled like hours.
When I wanted out, I put on eye liner
And they said, predictably,
“Look, she’s taking pride in her appearance.”
And I walked out with my overnight bag,
My diary, and my meds.

But when I got out, this false body stayed on,
A cardboard cutout for old friends to greet:
“Hi, how are you? What’s new?’
They hadn’t heard my husk of skin
Now played host to a changeling parasite.

I replay that scene in my mind,
Knowing I will never repeat it:
Calmly, I knot the white leather
tea dance tie,
wrap it around my high ceiling pipe
--I’ve done my research; no half measures for me--
And the truth arrives like spring:
A blank nothing is better than a bad something.