Each of Us

we were talking about the closeted conservative,

the one with the plain khakis and white tennis shoes,

his pressed collard shirt without stain in church.

or the one with the brown stetson hat perched just

above his father's mustache, scuffed jeans working

their way through the wind like a plow on flat grassland.

the one who does not know he is queer.

the sheer purity of his secret, to which he cannot

put words. the sacredness of the inner gay man

we all wish would be let loose, but the preciousness of the weight

he carries, for all of us, by holding it inside.

and i wished that god would come down to give permission

for him to lay rest his unglittery mask, to open

up the unloved spirit waiting to dazzle us with its spritely

gaze, and show us all how to forgive, how to love

and be brave.

then they said, a coy rebuttal on their feminiely mustached lip,

that it is of no worry, we have done this before.

that god already comes down, he only does—

one at a time

—through each of us who dares to be set free.