(In memory of the Stonewall Uprising, June 28, 1969)

The tiny triangle of a park
catches my eye as the yellow taxi
whisks me back to where I began—
three days in, and I’m taxiing like
a New Yorker.

The fluttering rainbows make
me want to search out the wee
green space with the tall statue.
Fingering my portable encylopedia,
I oh! right there in the cab—

Stonewall. That Stonewall.
Not the Civil War general, but
the site of a different kind
of battle, now a national
monument to those who
fought, who died in a war,
I realize, that has never
ended.

And I think of the men
who lived the last of their
lives in small bedrooms
in San Francisco, dying of
a plague no one could
quell at the time,

tended by women I knew,
visited by men in high heels,
who brought food and held
the hands of their friends
and lovers as they died,
so many shunned by their
embarrassed families.

And I walk to the park,
where the rainbow flags stir
in the soft breeze, taking a place
at the wrought iron fence with
other pilgrims on a gloriously
sunny New York afternoon,
and remember,

before turning to look at the bar
where so many made a stand
for their right to exist.

And I cross the street,
open the fabled door,
and go in.