It's the 21st Century, America.  Still 10 percent
of your children dart their eyes past evening lovers
in the daylight halls, lest others know for sure we're queer.
It's the 21st Century, America.  Still you intimidate
bachelor sons and unwed daughters, even into their fifties,
with pleas for more and more grandchildren.
Still you train your offspring
to be fruitful and multiply with a vengeance.
It's the 21st Century, and still you feel damned
if just the body plumbing is matched differently
when your children finally learn to love,
and profanely you keep turning on the light.
When will you grow old gracefully, Uncle Sam and Aunt Jemima?
When will you free your gay children from your unlove?
When will you stop exploiting their style, their grace, 
       and their art,
while consigning to a Cinderella attic
all who do not kiss the hetero frog?
Your fairies are growing wings, America,
quite beyond your expectations.
Your fairies' wands are empowered
and by their magic your dullness stands exposed,
your catholicity nothing but a bingo club,
your politics only a stormtrooper's boot camp.
You're dull, hetero America.
You need a bath and a dab of cologne,
a mystery cruise down your alleys,
wearing our disguise of sequined drag,
snorting a quean's giggle
as you try to discover where your soul has gone.

Louie Crew, 73, an Alabama native, is an emeritus professor at Rutgers. He lives in East Orange, NJ, with Ernest Clay, his husband of 36+ years.

As of today, editors have published 2,020 of Crew's poems and essays. Crew has edited special issues of College English and Margins. He has written four poetry volumes Sunspots (Lotus Press, Detroit, 1976), Midnight Lessons (Samisdat, 1987), Lutibelle's Pew (Dragon Disks, 1990), and Queers! for Christ's Sake! (Dragon Disks, 2003).

The University of Michigan collects Crew's papers.