Jendi Reiter

These Characters and Themes Cannot Exist

You can’t bring your heart to school
if there’s a boy in it
the same as you.
No mothers, even imaginary ones,
have wives
in Charlotte County, Florida. Penguins
live alone and far away
on the flat ice
that’s shrinking like a girl
stuffed in a locker.
Names come
in two sizes, books are covered
in mud or sugar
and manuals
on how to be a [blank] person
cannot be hidden
inside your clothes.
Emily is Nobody
and Abe never shared
his bearded honesty with Speed
in his bed.
Don’t snap
your fingers, butterfly
boy bestie, your whispering sisters
will have to get along
without
your paper to copy
the unspeakable thing
Claggart was willing
to die to say to Billy.
Behold, Simba
without Scar. Ariel’s voice was never
lost to the rough embrace
of the tentacled witch.
All quiet
on every front. The librarians
don’t need to purse their lips
and the worms,
unwed as fingers
of children holding a rope
to stay in line,
still tunnel their script
into the dirt.

[Source: Judd Legum, “Florida school district orders librarians to purge all books with LGBTQ characters,” Popular.info, 9/26/23. Poem title is a quote from guidance given by Charlotte County Superintendent Mark Vianello on 7/24/23 on removing books from libraries and classrooms.]

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Jendi Reiter is the author of five poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Made Man (Little Red Tree, 2022); the story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press/New Millennium Writings, 2018); and the novels Origin Story (Saddle Road Press, 2024) and Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016). Origin Story was a finalist for the Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press and Two Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction. They are the editor of the writing resource site WinningWriters.com.