“Reading Ellison on Ellison Avenue”
The Shade Journal (2025)
In exchange for trumpet lessons,
Ralph maintained Ludwig’s lawn.
A fine student at Douglass High,
Ralph rode a westbound streetcar
to learn from an orchestra conductor
who taught at an all-white school:
Classen—where he would be invited
as the one-and-only to study in secret
at a high school he could not attend.
I learn about him in that building,
“Aubade for the Habana Inn”
Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day (2024)
Before adolescence reached me, each morning
I marveled past the Habana Inn, a degenerate haven
hidden plainly off Route 66. My cheeks clenched
as I caught in the rearview oblique glimpses
of men, their beards groomed to signal discretion.
39th and Penn: a revolving sleuth of leathered pickups,
hot rods in cruise control. I numbered plates
skipping town from out-of-state
as we got groceries at what was Homeland,
which once was Safeway, but now is Goodwill.
“Biological Woman”
The Rumpus (2024)
Crossing a street,
I conceive of constellations
as women
who lived once,
who reach us now,
who lit ways forth
so we make it home safe—
“Alias”
Split This Rock’s Poem of the Week (2024)
Anthologized in We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word (Haymarket Books, 2024)
I make no pledge
to do no harm. Above all, a diagnosis is billable.
Naming wheels an economy so certain I yearn
for recognition. I would rather not be referred
to at all.
“I Don’t Even Like Sports”
Anthologized in Emerge: The Anthology for the 2023 Lambda Literary Writers Retreat (2024)
When the pride comes
to mount us like doe,
play dead.
Cheat the trap.
Reverse the chase.
Poach the egg.
Chalk the airtime
left behind.
“How Do You Create Community Out of a Rainbow of Difference?”
The Nation (2018)
Co-authored with Justice Ameer
As violence against those like us persists—as violence against those unlike us persists—our current LGBTQ community should heed Stonewall’s lessons. We don’t have to be the same. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t even have to like one another. Our futures are not guaranteed, but these histories of resistance make it clear: We will not get free working alone.
“When Remembering Stonewall, We Need To Listen to Those Who Were There”
Them (2018)
Originally titled: “It Doesn't Matter Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall”
This focus on the “first” punch/brick/molotov cocktail is intended to refute revisionist histories that undermine the labor of transgender women and lesbians of color (neither of which are mutually exclusive) within the LGBTQ+ community. But in our attempts to counter revisionism by uplifting the work and impact of LGBTQ+ women of color, we create and normalize false histories that fail to accurately recognize their legacies and those of countless others who jeopardized their lives to resist the police.
“Binge”
Muzzle Magazine (2017)
i’m so fish, i’m drowning on land. i’m so fish, people don’t even know which way i’m swimming.
“Ode to Enclaves”
The Blueshift Journal (2016)
Anthologized in Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience (Seven Stories Press, 2019)
Before my people built this Little Saigon,
white flight to the suburbs sucked
this city’s economy down to its marrow.
“Behold! A Spectacle”
The Offing (2016)
all those historical revisionists got it wrong / stonewall was a parade / procession of contagious breath
“On Using the Trans Panic Defense”
The Offing (2016)
Anthologized in Bettering American Poetry Volume 2 (2017)
