For Brown Rural Queers

we will be storytellers

on the wrong side of the story

& the border

& the proposition

we will sing as we walk

& walk & walk & walk

in a language we mastered from phrasebooks

orienting ourselves to the place

which god for us prepared

we will encounter soil

thinned & sandy with volcanic ash

& tend to root crops our mothers & fathers

sowed & unearthed & stored in the basement

they will see us reemerge

& transplant wild roses from the roadside

we will ask thee out of habit

to bless & sanctify our love to the souls of all

those that partake of it

that we may thrive in an earth not made for us

consecrate ourselves with the thorns of our own sacrifice

so that scared children may someday unbury

our voices engraved in gold

we will come to understand

that our bodies are a settled territory

crisscrossed with accidents

but spined with ancient seeds

I will bind myself tightly

to my borrowed land

& our queer stories

& pray for rain