The PINKO COMMIE DYKE HIJACKS
Julie Enszer
the commercial airwaves
with a souped up computer
a black digital box and
a broken down microphone
that sits limp in its stand
until she places her hand
at its base and presses
her lips to its metal mesh
electrified
the whole contraption
broadcasts her words
her voice
her shows
over the air and into a
thousand tiny radios
across the region
across the nation
first she kidnaps an alt-right
talk radio station
seizing control to
broadcast lesbian folk music:
Cris and Holly and Melanie
and Bitch and Ferron
Then old recordings of Lea Delaria
and audiotaped shows
from femorist Kate Clinton
she imagines this music
these stand up routines
these objects of lesbian culture
transforming racist listeners
into peace-loving
woman-loving comrades
When she has exhausted
her lesbian supply of mp3s
and discs and tapes
she takes to the airwaves directly
the pinko commie dyke
speaks and shouts and coos
and questions and posits
then takes calls
interlocuting with people
angry about queers
and bosses and losses
of jobs and opportunity
she is startled:
they have more in common
than she ever imagined
THE PINKO COMMIE DYKE SLEEPS
next to the big fierce dog
who bit another dog
and is banned from living in Maryland
he is large
his bark is deep
his jaw strong
he sleeps next to the pinko commie dyke
his mouth at her feet
his rump near her belly
his coat warms her
in the world he is ferocious
in bed he cuddles
she dreams of waking
with his strength
of baring her teeth to enemies
of growling
of snapping
she wants to be fierce
she wants people
to cower when they see her
she wants to bite
THE PINKO COMMIE DYKE REJECTS
beauty as a construct of patriarchy
Written on women’s bodies
through constraint and enforced modification
beauty thwarts healthy sexualities and erotic desires
The pinko commie dyke hates beauty
the pain it creates for women
the need to primp and cover
to blot and pluck to suck and shape
Beauty compares Finds women wanting
She cultivates ugliness
space outside the male gaze
space where bodies can be free
Except when she reads that line by Millay
Still will I harvest beauty where it grows:
Then she believes in beauty
She wants to join Millay in a bucolic field
of flowers and fresh scents with pollinating bees
making wild honey And it is not just Millay
who fosters beauty-lust: the other day a poem
came across her desk So spare immediate
perfect and she thought so beautiful
The startling revelation left her breathless
gasping for air brought clarity: the pinko
commie dyke rejects beauty and she yearns for it
Beauty by Isabel Clare Paul
Hijacks by Isabel Clare Paul
