LISA SUMME
CW – brief use of homophobic language
Gay Postcard Crown, Spring 2020
By the time I cross the park to get to your door, the tea will be cold. Can we drink it anyway, on your crumbling porch steps? What can you tell me about tenderness, your first time in Ohio? Did someone kiss you or call you faggot or both?
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Did someone kiss you or call you faggot or both? It was spring & every flower was new. I took pictures & sent them. What is this one called? At least one garden gay in every group text. They can tell you not only the name but how to grow it & pick it & grow it again.
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How to grow it & pick it & grow it again: tenderness, what can you tell me about crumbling porch steps, how drinking tea, even cold, is like the moment you cross the state line to home? By the time I cross the park to get to your door, it’s your first time in Ohio. I take pictures & send them.
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I take pictures & send them—flowers, not nudes. At least one garden gay in every group text. Tenderness: what I need to know about arriving at your door. I have seen more crumble than Ohio porch steps, than home. Did someone kiss you or call you faggot or both? It is spring & every flower is new.
Lisa Summe is the author of Say It Hurts (YesYes Books, 2021). She earned a BA and MA in literature at the University of Cincinnati, and an MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, The Cincinnati Review, Muzzle, Salt Hill, Waxwing, and elsewhere. You can find her running, playing baseball, or eating vegan pastries in Pittsburgh, PA, and on Instagram and Twitter @lisasumme.
Art by Rachel Singel