To celebrate his final Pride, in June,
my friend, lymphatic, thin, and in distress,
managed to dress in drag. He shot the moon:
outstretched, he’d used his dying to think—obsess—
about the Prada pumps, their skin a snake;
the heavy pantyhose, two pair; the moot
but lacy underthings; the makeup, cake,
to overlay his pain. I called him beaut-
i-ful; he said he felt like Greta Garbo
in Queen Christina (our campy interplay);
I countered that he looked more like a hobo-
sexual in heels. We howled. That day,
we never left his Castro flat. His rhinestone
glittered, and everywhere, the smell of cologne.
Randall Mann, “Queen Christina” from Breakfast with Thom Gunn. Copyright © 2009 by Randall Mann. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Source: Breakfast with Thom Gunn (The University of Chicago Press, 2009)
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