A contoured villanelle using Robin Becker’s “Villanelle For A Lesbian Mom”
When you’re queer, assholes will bend a wrist and call you sweet.
You learn to keep their eyes with yours, feign a version of tender
masculinity. Deepen your voice. Ditch your swish. Be indiscreet
when you exaggerate the number of thighs you’ve parted to eat.
Smirk. Say mustache rides are always free. You’re an offender
when you’re queer: assholes bend your wrists, call you sweet
boy, pansy, or fairy. Some coerce confessions. Silence is a feat,
your body not reacting to pain or pleasure, raising no attention or
masculine panic at a deeper voice or swish dished. Be indiscreet
with places, not names or whose arms you choose for sleep
and remember: frequenting certain spots in town engendered
assholes, not yet queer, to sneer into your wrist and call you sweet,
blowing your Grindr up past midnight like a song on repeat.
Sing along if you like, knife closed in your pocket. Surrender
nothing. Deepen your throat for their dish. Think of discreet
as the way you look up without looking at them for weeks.
Agree to meet again then cancel. Leave them wanting or
tie their wrists. Rim their holes. When you’re queer, be sweet
with your strokes. Whisper their names. Then be indiscreet.
Dustin Brookshire (he/him) is the recipient of the 2024 Jon Tribble Editors Fellowship and the author of four chapbooks: Repeat As Needed (Harbor Editions, May 2025), Never Picked First For Playtime (Harbor Editions, 2023), Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021), and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). He is a co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023) and editor of When I Was Straight: A Tribute to Maureen Seaton (Harbor Editions, 2024). Dustin founded and curates the Zoom-based Wild & Precious Life Series, which is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2025. His favorite revenge story: The 2018 reboot of Halloween. (Laurie Strode handled business!) More at dustinbrookshire.com.
Hailing from the farmland valleys of the west Appalachian foothills, Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, library professional, storyteller, Madonna superfan, and (according to his Uncle Jerry) a renowned exaggerator, Ben is the author of the chapbooks Sagittarius A* and Dead Uncles, as well as the collections It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature,) Twang (ELJ Editions,) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems.) His work has appeared in Poet Lore, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Southeast Review, DIAGRAM, Poetry, and other publications. His favorite revenge movie is Lady Snowblood. He refuses to reveal his villainous secret identity because he’s not finished using it.
