Rainbow Connection

So nose to the ground, you piggy reporters

to snuff out stories like truffles, gobbling

the T from your “LGB” in Stonewall and Civil Rights

biographies. Mutiny your motley crew. Betray 

Jill Hawkins, though she was like a son to you.

Frame your mirror self–the light to your shadow–

by placing your mole upon their cheek.

Take needles to your wrinkles and flee death’s

haunted mansion, leaving your friends betrothed

to graves behind you.

Fly, you winged monkeys, imperial drones

of the sky, to blind little girls from the magic eye 

revealing your emperor to be a con in a clown nose 

on a Hollywood set. Deny Gonzo a place on the ark 

and trawl the cosmic fish so that loving aliens

will never meet your stolen shores.

Teach young Scrooge, you Marley Brothers, to mock

and pinch pennies from the pockets of his workers.

Drive your cybertruck over a Broadway hopeful 

in Manhattan, robbing the next Larson of his memory.

You make a spectacle of forgetting, you groping

frog-leg-salesmen, but we will remember.

There are dreamers still in Florida. The Everglades

are more than a swamp for you to drain. From

the Panhandle to the Coastal Redwoods, we’ll keep 

making space on the bus. You may fear the variety show, 

but we’d give you your own number.

Together again and always, we host a million drag

lip syncs, sequels to Miss Piggy’s tenacity and Kermit’s

devotion, and when they try to erase us, we vow

to do it all again. We, the lovers, the dreamers,

and maybe–tomorrow, rainbowicly–you.

Photo by K. Pruis on Mt. Baker.