This poem is taken from PN Review 269, Volume 49 Number 3, January - February 2023.
Song of Myself
Every holly bush a campsite:
every leaf a pegged-out tent.
After the getting laid,
after the awkward leg-over,
the faint, fine kiss
of snooker balls.
The chrysalis coming out
as a drag queen.
Three things I dreamt.
Am I me in my sleep?
The poet Elizabeth Bartlett,
who worked in the NHS,
told me tartly in 1979,
after I rejected her poems,
with a kind letter,
that I had a medical condition,
...
every leaf a pegged-out tent.
After the getting laid,
after the awkward leg-over,
the faint, fine kiss
of snooker balls.
The chrysalis coming out
as a drag queen.
Three things I dreamt.
Am I me in my sleep?
The poet Elizabeth Bartlett,
who worked in the NHS,
told me tartly in 1979,
after I rejected her poems,
with a kind letter,
that I had a medical condition,
...
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