This is a repeat post because many people have been looking up the original:
In the 90s, I wrote a long poem called Going Santa Fe. This was a term referring to a straight woman who had become lesbian. I entered it into a contest; it won first prize at the League of Canadian Poets Chapbook Contest judged by bill bissett (now my gay son) and was published by them as a chapbook, cover artwork by Claire Kujundzic.
Although Canada won our battle for same-sex marriage rights over ten years ago (I was a litigant in our case and we won June 2003), the US is still mired in discussions about what is still in your country, unbelievably, a contentious topic. So I thought reprinting the poem here might be of assistance to people grappling with how to understand it:
Going Santa Fe
“The Lesbian is one of the least known members of our culture. Less is known about her–and less accurately–than about the Newfoundland dog.”
-Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love, Sappho Was a Right-on Woman, 1972
“During the 1920s and 1930s…a woman who had switched her sexual preference was said to have ‘gone Santa Fe.’”
-Jeffrey Hogrefe, O’Keeffe, 1992
1)
When I started loving women
I thought I was falling through a roof
a tumble through shingle and beam and plaster
back into innocence
The truth is, I was nine. The first
girl I fell for wore a yellow dress
simple as sunshine–
I didn’t need innocence at all
I never, ever had a crush
on one of my gym teachers
You want to know
my history with men?
The first boy was called Teddy
I liked him because my
best chum told me to
I took my cues where I found them
I mimicked my friends
Do: hair, nails. Feel: giggly
For me, dating men was
a lot like bowling
a pleasant diversion
I felt nothing in particular
I was blank as a bowling ball
racketing the gutter
The truth is
I was raised by heterosexual parents
a man, a woman
The truth is I
didn’t have a rocky
childhood
The truth is, heterosexuals
are some of my
best friends
2)
“Cancer
When the moon, Uranus, and Pluto
do their planetary thing
you want girls who come
like frothy milkshakes
Gay Pride weekend you will be
showing cleavage in a black jumpsuit
and tossing girls in the air
like pancakes.”
–Girlfriends magazine May/June ‘95
3)
Generally, I say, the sex is better
It’s the sex straight women
are always quoted as
saying they want
4)
“It’s just like heterosexual sex, only we don’t have to fake the orgasm.”
-Suzanne Westenhoefer, Girls Next Door, Into the Heart of Lesbian America, Lindsey van Gelder and Pamela Robin Brandt, Simon and Schuster, 1996, page 102
5)
lez be friends
6)
I was sometimes the crowbar
married women used to extricate themselves
from their husbands
For instance
there was a business meeting
at a university in the east
I took a married woman back to my room
where she drank sherry from my belly button
In the morning she thought she was leaving me
but the door she opened was into the closet
7)
Do you realize
lesbians in the closet
are hiding from
you?
8)
Heterosexual Questionnaire
What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
Most child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexuals? To heterosexual teachers, in particular?
Is it possible that your heterosexuality steams from a neurotic fear of people of the same sex? Perhaps you just need a positive gay experience.
-Family Values, Two Moms and Their Sons, by Phyllis Burke, Random House, 1993, page 83 (Queer Nation)
9)
Every straight friend my lover and I
confided in found it necessary
to tell at least three trusted friends
who found it news enough that they
told at least two trusted friends
who vowed to keep it
absolutely private
10)
One of my married lovers said
But couldn’t you
teach a man to touch you
the way a woman does?
Pretend that I could.
Then what?
11)
No one asks my friend Grace
when she sleeps with men
whether she hates women
12)
When I left my first lover
I was as bruised
as if I was straight–
that heartbroken
13)
“…lesbians have not, as a rule, turned to women because of a terrible experience with a man. ‘If that’s all it took,’ goes one of stand-up comic Suzanne Westenhoefer’s classic lines, ‘there wouldn’t be any straight women left in America.’”
–Girls Next Door, page 90
14)
My wife’s in Toronto with her Lesbian Lover,
he said.
Not immune to the power
of the phrase Lesbian Lover
I could feel myself
beginning to swell, to grow
to one hundred feet, a giantess
able to squash happy family heterosexuals
with a single footstep
15)
When I first touched
my lover
I believed I was giving
birth to myself
that sweet occasion
that celebration
Soon, I called her beloved
honey, angel, sweetheart
She was a woman
her back arching
just so
She walked Spanish banks
a serene silhouette
Our past her, the ocean
tossed and heaved her flanks
16)
I love her I love her
17)
“At one point we were facing each other. Nic suddenly leaned over and started kissing me. My first reaction? It was Nicole, but it felt strange. I thought, I don’t feel disgusted or upset, but can I really let myself enjoy this? Am I going to be uptight? Am I going to break away now? And then I thought, No, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to let my feelings lead me…see how it goes…
Nicole pulled back and looked into my eyes. I said. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how…”
I was in a state of shock. But the shock wasn’t strong enough to make me stop…”
-Faye D. Resnick. Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted, 1994
18)
“The pressure to test out heterosexuality is intense, [but] ‘how will you know until you’ve tried both?’ is advice that’s rarely given to straight kids.”
-Girls Next Door, page 84
19)
When you meet gay and lesbian people: Hints for the Heterosexual
do not run screaming from the room
if you must back away, do so slowly
do not assume they are attracted to you
do not assume they are not attracted to you
do not expect them to be as excited about meeting
a heterosexual as you may be about meeting a gay person
do not immediately start talking about your partner
to make it clear you are straight
-postcard, Dan Kaufman graphics
20)
Q: What do lesbians do on the second date?
A: Rent a U-Haul
-common lesbian joke
21)
Well, as long as you’re discreet
What you do in the
privacy of your bedroom
is none of my business
(I guess)
but isn’t it
I don’t know
sort of
boring? sort of…
gross?
Really, I’d be a lesbian too
if it weren’t for Bob
Did you read the lesbian poem cycle
in my book?
I mean, Susie and I didn’t do anything
but I was in love with her
What do you mean
you’re not attracted to me?
22)
“Not even a good ironing can make me straight.”
-from an Elizabeth Gorelik photograph
23)
Tell us something about lesbians
We have short fingernails
24)
Why do heterosexuals
have a life
while homosexuals
only get a
lifestyle?
25)
I am a woman
I dream of tenderness in a cool morning bed
26)
Listen
Can I ask you something?
Will you open the book again
re-write the song? Or travel
down the road you live on
slowly, inviting us along?
27)
“Hate is not a family value.”
-message on a bumper sticker
28)
make lists:
Lesbians Who Anthropomorphize Their Pets
Lesbian Coiffures
Lesbians I Love
Famous Lesbians
29)
Chastity Bono
Melissa Etheridge
Candace Gingrich
Janis Ian
kd lang
Ellen DeGeneres
Elspeth Cameron?
30)
Books by the side of a lesbian bed:
Shelter, by Jayne Anne Phillips
She’s Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
Anna Kerenina, by Leo Tolstoy
The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams
i live in music, by ntozake shange
Stones by the River, by Ursula Hegi
31)
But what do lesbians do?
32)
In a Toronto bookstore, my friend Janis and I
thumbed through the Rubyfruit catalogue of sex toys
and she said, They’re what? I thought
they were candles.
33)
The truth is the sex involves
the usual suspects
34)
But which one of you is the man?
The truth is that is lesbian couples
both partners are women
That’s why they call us lesbians
35)
With this ring, I thee wed
(Finally)
36)
I can’t even think straight
–message on a tee shirt
37)
Is that a lesbian
or a garment bag?
38)
“Aries
Aries lesbians whoopee
at night with such force that
car alarms go off
Summer solstice brings
a girl habit you might
not be able to kick.”
-Girlfriends magazine, May/June 1995
39)
What if I fell in love with a
woman from Nashville
and Immigration wouldn’t
allow me into the US?
40)
Gayby Boom
41)
Auntie Joy’s adopting Sarah and Meghann, I said.
They’re going to be your real cousins.
What were they before? asked our niece.
Fakes?
42)
“My mother came out of the closet and all I got was this crummy tee shirt.”
43)
At the IVF clinic
in Vancouver, lesbians
wanting insemination
were turned away
This was called
nondiscriminatory
44)
Our favorite coffee shop
refuses to carry the local
gay newspaper because
it’s a family place
45)
“Last year we reported that Sharon Bottoms had finally gained legal custody of her young son, Tyler. But sadly, Bottoms’ fight wasn’t over. On April 21 a divided Virginia Court of Appeals ruled 4-3 in favor of awarding custody to Bottoms’ mother, Kay. The majority opinion argued that Tyler could be condemned by society if raised by lesbian mothers.”
-Curve magazine, August 1995
46)
“I couldn’t help but think that she’s fifty-four years old and had been dating that woman for twelve years–isn’t that sick?” a man who killed an Oregon lesbian couple in 1995 indignantly explained to the San Francisco Examiner. “That’s someone’s grandma, for God’s sake…Lesbo grandmas, what a thing, huh?”
-Girls Next Door, page, 14
47)
Once someone called me up
anonymously
and in the harsh voice
of an obscene caller said
Do you know you’re living
with a lesbian?
48)
Imagine love being shameful
Can you?
Imagine loving your boyfriend
and hiding it, so that you
can’t wear your wedding ring out
of the house, so that you can’t
tell the other teachers
at work, so that you have to deflect
questions about why you
aren’t married
Say
I haven’t met the right guy
Say, Yet
Spurn your boyfriend out loud
a few times each week:
Chris? Oh, we’re just friends
When he goes to kiss you
on the corner, pull away
glance around furtively
deny him
for instance to your mother and father
so that, at Christmas, you go home
alone
Peel potatoes and stare
at the turkey baster, say
I’m dating someone, but he’s…
think fast, say
...already married
If somebody finds out imagine how
you could lose
your job
your housing
your life
49)
When it came time to
rent a house
my first girlfriend dressed
in sensible shoes
and a heavy iron cross
We told the landlord
she was a man
The truth is she and I
never held hands
in the town in which
we lived for five years
because what if someone
took offense and we
were two women
in a house
in the country
at night
50)
Pretend your husband
is a woman
Does anything change for you
now that you’re lesbian?
Pretend
just for the moment
that someone figures it out
say for argument’s sake
your baker, your dentist, your mother
your massage therapist
Would anything happen?
Choose just one person
say What is the worst thing I could
tell you about myself?
You have cancer.
Worse.
You killed someone.
Worse.
51)
Excuse me, sir, were you aware
this is the woman’s washroom?
Anne? That’s a funny name
for a man
When my gal and I signed up
for dance classes, the clerk said,
Your partner’s name?
and I said, Joy
and she said, Joey?
and I said, Joy
and she said, Joe?
and I said, Joy
and she said, John?
and I said, Joy
and she frowned and wrote Jeff down
shaking her head
At class several women
refused to dance with us
52)
Imagine love being dangerous
Outside the community centre
near my home
some teenage
boys
pelted a woman
with snowballs and stones
She looked the type
Dyke, they hissed
At a Bread Garden on Denman Street
Joy and I stared at each other
stupid with love
until a man growled, Goddamned lezzies
Which one’s on top?
The truth is that we scuttled away
when he wasn’t looking
trying to fade into the storefronts
across the street
Watching our backs
yearning for the soft
insides of closets
53)
In Iran, a group of lesbians and gay men
who admitted they loved
people of their same gender
were given a choice:
stoning, or a plunge from a cliff
All ten chose to die
in flight
54)
abomination
a sin against God
sodomite
pervert
invert
woman with immature sexuality
(all she needs is one good…)
55)
“We don’t want [the Lesbian Camp Sisterspirit] here for the simple reason of… It’s a known fact that all your violent crime comes from homosexuals.”
-Jones County deputy sheriff Myron Holified, Mobile Register, Mississippi, Feb. 27/94
The women
found a dead puppy
dressed in menstrual pads
spilled over their mailbox
56)
In Oregon, they narrowly averted
a plebiscite against us. In Colorado, they
passed a law against us. In Ontario, they voted
against our equality
57)
“In its 1989 ‘Gay in America’ report, the San Francisco Examiner calculated the cost to a hypothetical employee of its own who was in a legally unrecognized gay relationship, and compared the costs facing a legally married straight employee. Both staffers were fifty years old, and both earned $40,000 a year. In total, the report found that partners of gay Examiner employees who had worked for ten years would receive $55, 890 less in benefits than straight employees’ legally married spouses, and, if they outlived their gay partners by ten years, would lose $8000 in pension payments.”
-Girls Next Door
58)
Sometimes I long to
feel exotic and
dangerous, but
what always strikes me
is that I am as
ordinary as pie
that bland
As a lesbian
I brush my teeth
twice a day
As a lesbian
I clean my kitchen floor
once a week
As a lesbian
I pay my VISA bill
once a month
boring as soap
59)
My mother made me a lesbian
If I give her the wool
will she make me one too?
60)
Differences between you and me:
You are five foot six
I am five foot three
You have green eyes
I have blue eyes
You are thirty-four
I am forty-one
You live on Gladstone
I live on Arbutus
I don’t get a kinked neck
kissing my partner
61)
You committed a homosexual act.
I did not.
Elton John is a homosexual act.
62)
Tell me something about lesbians
We are famous for potlucks
Tell me something real
I am trying to tell you
she and I are the same thing
I am trying
to tell you I am a woman
she is a woman
the same thing
as you, just
two people uniting
netting love from the
marine heavens
We comfort each other
when the sky churns like a cauldron
grey foam
Wouldn’t you wish this pleasure
on anyone?
63)
The truth is I grew the
tub of nodding sunflowers
And the bowl of chicken
on the harvest table? I cooked
it. And the quilt you lie on? I sewed it
And the book in your hands? I wrote it
And the baby’s cheek? I kissed it
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