Matthew Shepard... (although it may be too late)

by Joseph McCombs

Coming out is billed as kicking open closet doors,
entering emerald sunshine, jubilance, singing
a snappy little show tune from Judy Garland;

but some become Scarecrows instead.
Thrown headlong onto a fence, beaten with the
butt of a gun, swallowing blood rivulets and burned

to within a hair of a soul, left crucified
like some forsaken son, left to rot
in the thirty degrees of a deep Wyoming night;

Perhaps you can imagine this. This is Coming Out
when you're not ascending an Emerald City,
when rainbows are distant like freedom

and you're catching your breath continually
just to keep it from being stolen.
This is what makes us so bitter, so often.

Someone is kicking open a closet door as I speak and
someone is thinking about redemption while huddling over
Matthew Shepard's carcass and I am choking on this brittle air.

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