Time holds a scale of queer bodies and touch.
A lattice of tragedies across years, or just one.

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Stumble the invisible trellis of lifelines.
We arrived, collapsed, how even once?

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How the fright and night-carriage by sea?
Moorings decayed thread more than one.

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Plunder the nightstick; deceive the night guard.
Untucked desires pair, begging one.

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I catch the ball I bounce on your chest.
A collection of stories shorn to one.

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Light lifts mountains, signals us dawn.
We don’t wait for history to couple us won.

This poem is a part of unHIDDEN: After C.P. Cavafy, a digital tribute centered on modern queer desire and visibility and whether this is the "later" that Cavafy imagined in his poem "Hidden." Learn more about C.P. Cavafy and the city-wide festival “Archive of Desire”: A Festival Inspired by the Poet C.P. Cavafy here.

About Amanda Lichtenberg

Amanda Lichtenberg’s poetry has been published in Versal, LUNGFULL!, Forklift, Slice, Caesura, Schmear the Queer, and other journals and anthologies. Amanda was highlighted as an artist to watch by Creative Capitol’s “On Our Radar” under genre-defying literature for work described as a collision of familial and American history. Amanda serves on the board of directors of Alice James Books. She is the recipient of fellowships from Willapa Bay AiR, Norman Mailer Writers Colony, Playa, and received an Amy Award. Amanda is a drummer whose professional work spans environmental grant writing, voice-over, HIV/AIDS prevention education, and working with LGBTQ+ youth.

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