We claim our own:
Sappho
Bessie Smith
Anais Nin
We claim our own:
Walt Whitman
Navratilova
Langston Hughes
Keep them in your archives
yes
you’re welcome to them
as you are to us
I am bisexual
I am gay
I am lesbian
Count me in your history books
fighting side by side
for the right
to love a same-sex lover
and not be persecuted for it
Surely, swell the ranks
Elton John
Virginia Woolf
James Dean
Boast about
Vita Sackville-West
Colette
Djuna Barnes
Whisper rumors
document
the (often hidden) gay lives
of famous people
who have given to the world
But don’t then
turn around and tell me
I don’t belong here.
If you claim bisexual cannot mean gay,
then purge your history books
of so many names
that swell your breast with pride –
names of people who have also loved
both sexes.
1991 |