My friends say don’t go back to Florida,
say vote with your wallet,
say he doesn’t deserve your dollars or your presence,
and they’re right—
but I miss Key West in winter:
the geckos translucent on the screen door at dusk,
the way light off the Gulf
comes slant and forgiving.
Maybe I’m the one who softens there,
who becomes capable of mercy,
even for myself.
In Provincetown everyone is beautiful
and we are afraid of the same things.
We know the same facts about our bodies,
have seen the same documentary,
click donate in the blue glow of our phones.
It’s paradise—I mean that—
but sometimes paradise is just a gorgeous choir
singing to itself,
every face a mirror
that gives back your own face
a little less true.
And still I don’t know: stay where it’s safe or go where it’s not?
Some days I think let me have this one easy life.
Other days: the queer kids still in Tampa,
still in Jacksonville,
two boys sharing earbuds outside the Publix on Dale Mabry,
the white cord a lifeline between them—
still there, still holding on.
I keep going back. The money follows.
Funds a governor I’d never vote for, yes,
but also the Cuban Coffee Queen
where ceiling fans push the Gulf breeze through,
where roosters strut between the tourists’ feet,
iridescent, indifferent, ungovernable.
Funds the bookstore on Eaton Street
where I see Judy Blume wandering,
just another woman in linen,
reaching for a book.
Maybe there is no should.
Maybe I’m just a man who wants to be warm in February,
who wants to watch the light change on the water,
who wants to be alive—
simply, stubbornly alive.
