In 1901, México City police detained forty-one gay men at a dance. Many were subjected to slave labor. Since then, in México the number forty-one has been used in jokes & derogatory remarks against homosexuality.
There are currently six countries where the death penalty is used for people in same-sex relationships: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria, & Somalia.
1.
Asked to remove my mask, I peeled off my face & let the world see
2.
inside, a dark made of edges. Asked how I could look myself
3.
in the mirror, I stood before a lake for days, my tongue dry
4.
stone. I drank all the water. Fish swam inside me
5.
for weeks. Tadpoles shot out my eyes in my sleep. Asked how I could dream
6.
of men, their waltzing legs, the forty-one sharp cheeks blushing in the candle
7.
-lit dark, in México, the forty-one abdomens soaking a river with their shame
8.
-less loving, I bit out my tongue, which shot in its silence to bruise & bloody
9.
a loving
10.
man’s forehead
11.
to death in Saudi Arabia today,
12.
just for loving
13.
the dark
14.
edges in men.