INAUGURAL POEM

—for Richard Blanco

“Better to have a granddaughter
who’s a whore than a grandson 
who is un pato faggot like you”
—Richard Blanco, “Making a Man
Out of Me,” Who’s Yer Daddy?

Richard Blanco’s poem—
That he read that cold January
Day of the Inauguration
Caught America by surprise

Such a handsome Latino—
Born in Miami after Castro’s
Cuban Revolution and now
All these years later

But do things get better—
Does the abuse & bullying
Ever stop for our young gays
Exiling them to the Closet?

Did our Stonewall Riots—
And our Gay Revolution 
Ever trickle down to the
Young exiles of today?

So much homophobia—
Intergenerational warfare
Like Blanco’s prejudicial
Cuban grandmother 

Guilting the young poet—
For being effeminate and
Gay back when he was
Just seven years old

Philip Larkin knew it—
In his “This Be The Verse”
How they fuck you up, your 
Parents and your peer group

They mean to, they want to—
They fill you with the faults 
They had and add some extra
Especially just for you

Perhaps the only solution—
Letting the older generation
Finally kick the fucking bucket
Let Whitman back in town.