spotted in Greenwich

[apiphile]

köçek, coat-check

hard to explain,
but the fat drag queen in her Christmas red,
churning out her Merry Little Christmas
in a voice ravaged by forty years of red Marlboros,
is something more ancient.
I don't mean Shakespeare, although his generation
understood it best:
you cross a river to practice the forbidden,
licentious arts of theatre and fucking,
dragging bears to dogged deaths in a pit--
it's a fucking ancient feeling,
much older than the island.
Something crosséd this way comes,
like putting on a mask, asking the actors
at the Dionysia to speak in the voices of girls--
the dame puts on her powdered wig
while the boy, his breasts taped,
straps on the phalloi, the comedy balls,
bruising child-slapped thighs.
To tell a story the right way
you need to put yourself in someone else's shoes,
her corsets, her make-up.
To witness and digest the truths you are a guest to,
first you must understand
that they are fake.
But reality is fragile.
It cannot take the knowledge that
any man can be a king when the crown
and theatre crowd agree; if that's all it takes,
you'll end in some sick democracy
--wait, wait--
The queen throws on her gown.
This is old.
We're in the primal age now.
Do you understand--the woman lives
in the way she moves her legs and not
what's between them?
The Gods do. The Gods did--
so do the groundlings.
Listen. Have yourself a Merry Little Costume.
When you take it off,
you'll be what you've always known you are.