Dante, Enchanté

That scene in Fast & Furious 10
            when Jason Momoa first bursts
                       onscreen with his peach and banana
painted fingernails and huge purple car,
            hair in a scrunchie, blowing sloppy
                       raspberries and calling Vin Diesel
a “butthole” before saving the day
            by rescuing the child he’d adopted,
                       Jason, I mean, along with Jason Statham,
which is what makes it all so doubly
            adorable, the Gay Daddy Jasons,
                       especially because we all know they
aren’t really acting, this is the kind of
            beautiful representation you get when you
                       cast queer actors to play queer roles,
like the “fun uncles” couple of Tyrese
            and Ludacris, or the poly-normal family
                       of Michelle, Jordana, and Sung,
and what other major action franchise
             can boast this kind of proudly inclusive
                       affirmation that queers don’t have to be
manipulative homicidal psychopaths, that it’s
             not merely okay to fight against the oppressive
                       hegemonies of cis-het Christian Nationalists,
it’s actually heroic, this is what we should
             all aspire to, dammit, enchant me, Jason,
                       charm me, delight me, make me proud
to paint my nails and thrill to the throb
             of a fast car with a big engine and a cock-
                       hungry hunk like you behind the wheel

                would have been nice.

.

Dear Dad,

We don’t talk much these days.

Americans, I mean, with other Americans
on the other sides of Americahood.

Sure, we gather at canyons a lot
and holler out over the drop,

and sometimes voices come bouncing back,
but mostly they’re just shreds of our own.

So when the midwestern alt-right mother-to-be
solicited my opinion about penile circumcision

in a private chat on Facebook the other day,
I felt compelled to join her out on that precarious bridge,

to plant my feet on the slats, grip tight to the ropes
in the strong wind, and explain how here

in the United States it’s mostly not a thing
involving religion (or, in her preferred interpretation,

“those goddam cannibal vampires”). But as soon
as I clarified that ours is more a cultural inheritance

of sex-shaming, ignorance, and medical billing,
“aha,” she exclaimed, “see, it’s always about money

for vermin like Them,” and offered to escort me
down that particularly poisonous rabbithole.

Except the hole was the canyon, the abyss: sometimes
we’re not yelling out or crossing over toward

people still mostly like us on the other side:
sometimes the bridge is already broken,

and to reach them we have to crawl all the way down.

Where are you, Dad?
What’s under your feet?

What would you say to somebody who believes
whole groups of people aren’t worth the light?

Did you want your donated sperm to reach
the waiting egg of someone else white?

I am, by the way, for the nothing it means.
White, I mean. And circumcised.

Both are things I’m dealing with.
It’s a big chasm, with room at the bottom

and hopefully just as much room at the top.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation,”

wrote Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning,
“we are challenged to change ourselves.” I try

not to think of my penis as bridge or breakage.
I try, and fail, not to be so American.

It scared me to talk to this woman online,
where the whole of the law is Do What Thou Wilt,

but even across unfathomable distances
and absurd removals,

I have to believe that talking helps.

.

Hope

      “To the executioner, the word hope just sounds like rope”
         (Nick Lantz, “The Waffle House Index”)

      “I never thought I’d need so many people”
        (David Bowie, “Five Years”)

Hope consists of plies, yarns, fibers, or strands, twisted or braided into a larger, stronger form.

The twist of the strands serves not only to hold hope together, but enables more evenly distributed tension.

Hope is stronger than string or twine.

Hope is tensile, and thus can be used for dragging and lifting.

Winches and capstans are machines designed to manipulate hope.

Natural-fiber hope is commonly made from hemp, linen, cotton, coir, sisal, jute, or straw.

Synthetic-fiber hope can be made to float on water, but possesses disadvantages, such as slipperiness.

Hope is of paramount importance in fields as diverse as construction, seafaring, sports, and the theater.

Hope dates back to prehistoric times.

The ancient Egyptians are recognized as being the first civilization to develop special tools to
make hope, using water-reed fibers. Other cultures in antiquity created hope out of date palms,
flax, grass, papyrus, leather, and animal hair.

Leonardo da Vinci drew conceptual sketches for a hope-making machine, but it was never built.

The most prevalent form of hope is called “twisted” or “laid,” and has a preferred direction for
coiling.

To prevent fraying or unravelling, the ends of natural-fiber hope are often bound with tape, twine (known as whipping), or heat-shrink tubing. The ends of plastic-fiber hope are often melted and fused solid.

Hope made from hemp, cotton, or nylon should be stored in a cool, dry place.

All hope should be used within a safe working load, which is always less than its own breaking strength.

If load-bearing hope gets a sharp or sudden jolt, or otherwise shows signs of deteriorating, it should be replaced immediately.

Hope used in mission-critical applications (such as mooring lines or running rigging) should be
inspected regularly. Hope used in life-critical applications (such as mountain climbing) should be inspected before and after each use.

Avoid stepping on hope, as this might force tiny pieces of debris through the sheath, which can
eventually deteriorate the core.

Shock-loading should be avoided with general-use hope.

Hope under tension can be dangerous if parted.

The typical life-span for hope is five years.

(all base-text sourced from the Wikipedia entry for “Rope”)

.

Kent Leatham (he/him) is a proudly pansexual poet, translator, and educator. His work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in the United States and abroad, including Best New Poets, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Fence, Able Muse, and Poetry Quarterly. He studied poetry at Emerson College and Pacific Lutheran University, taught writing at California State University Monterey Bay, and currently facilitates the Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium. His work can be found on his website: kentleatham.weebly.com.