To Queens and Princesses

For Bella with Love to Jean Nate, and Janelle
By Gayle Bell

Image by Shaquille Dunbar c/o nappy.co

I have tiptoed on the periphery of your lives
Steel butterfly
Lace and lash
nail and scent
no safe place to hide.
I was 15 and a runaway
young, dumb working this hole in the wall
Selling my wares
 
Jean Nate was a flame Drag woman.
Red hair,
crimson dress,
fingers and toes of iridium 
Smelling of Chanel#5 and powder.
Motioning a finger her way
In a gravel and whiskey voice she said
Now hon, watch yoself,
someones been robbing girls and shooin
she waved me away
a trick vying for her attention.  
 
Outside the club, attention riveted to the moon
The glint of a 22.
The hard stare of a man with little to lose.  
We walked to the path,
the only sound was my blood
in too big a hurry to decorate the sidewalk.
hey! leave er alone muth-fucka
 
I didn't ask where the bullet went,
Torn knees and hose,
mascara running, wig askew.
Girl! didn I tell you, just blest
get yo ass off these streets!    
 
Bella
We met at the Deep Ellum Poetry Fest
You
hot pants (black leather!) in the shade,
fishnets & stilettos your signature look.
Poetry that would make Lovecraft quake
 
You stretched full height,
your butterfly metallic colors
pure as your soul.
Someone said you died in a car crash;
your colors
melting in the blaze.
 
The full circle
dusty days of my education.
what a Drag
my beautiful Peacock
what a Drag!

---

Gayle Bell

Gayle Bell is a poet living in Dallas, TX who has been featured in poetry and art venues there. She identifies as a LGBTQY woman with a disability. When provoked; a fat positivity activist. Gayle’s work has been featured in numerous anthologies, print and online publications. In 2018 she performed “Black Betty, That Thangs Gone Wild”, with Cara Mia’s Storytellers, Building Communities. In 2013-2014, she was a co-docent for “My Immovable Truth-A Dallas Lineage”. She facilitated her and other GLBTQY’s oral history and performances, sponsored by (MAP-Make Art With Purpose) and displayed at the African American Museum in Dallas, TX.