Ghosts in the Smoking Area
-Robin M Eames
This poem has a content note. To view it, click here.
Fuck-eyed on cheap tequila
in the smoker’s caucus
outside the gay bar
I notice the absences
gaps in the crowd
where Mama L held court
where queens & whores
& goths & glittering twinks
& leatherdykes & butch mums
blazed across the sky
to land sparkling in the gutter
still burning to the end
Where older queers taught me
how to roll a durry / see thru
bullshit / self medicate / how
to propagate shoplifted plants
how to be kind / radicalise
rising up out of the gutter
swelling with piss & storm water
while the moon reflected
brightly over broken beerglass
Now the list of the dead
is so long I don’t remember
all their names, don’t speak others.
Sometimes we see it coming
other times it’s a quiet fading
or sudden disappearance
social media panic / search
“Have you heard” / “have you seen”
& seeing them again
in the vigils & inquests,
hospital admissions, obituaries
in the gaps in the crowd
where the baby queers
party on, not knowing
what was fought & lost
for their messy joy
To hear Robin read their poem ‘Ghosts in the Smoking Area’, click below.
Robin M Eames is a queercrip poet and historian living on Gadigal land. Their work has been published in Overland, Meanjin, Cordite, and APJ, among others.
