All are Welcome Here
your window sticker states;
so, I push open your door of frosted glass,
and tuck myself into the
cold summer greeting.
As my eyes adjust from the loss of sun,
I smell straight spines and stale air.
Then I stand center aisle and scan:
Shakespeare, Local Authors, Young Adult: Supernatural...
“Where is your Queer Literature?”
You raise your head—startled—
As if the bells above your door
hadn’t sounded their warning.
Your eyes look past me.
“It’s tucked in the alcove in back.”
You shrug. Gesture with your chin.
I catalog the shelves as I pass:
French Cookbooks, NYT Bestsellers, Hiking Guides.
Just past Adult Literature I find a few dozen titles
catching dust on a bottom shelf: Gay and Lesbian Fiction.
I scan the titles:
Giovanni’s Room, The Immoralist, Death in Venice.
Orlando, On a Grey Thread, The Well of Loneliness.
Nothing new. Few fluid. Rarely happy in the end.
I return to the front—
ask for titles by name:
“Mostly Dead Things? Stray City? Fun Home?”
You type, scan your screen,
Then raise your eyes above metal frames.
“No. Nothing like those.”
“Where do you shelve your bisexual or transgender books?
Your intersex? Asexual? Your two-spirit fiction?”
“Oh, well, we limit our selection—
we don’t want to confuse people.”
She walks away—straightens her shelf of Russian Poetry.
Heather M.F. Lyke (she/her) is a writer living in southern Minnesota. By day, Lyke works in the world of K-12 education. On evenings and weekends, she creates. She builds things out of nothing: sometimes with paint, occasionally with fabric, but most often with words. Lyke's published nonfiction works focus on teaching and learning. Most of her recent work, however, is poetry, which often stems from her strong sense of place.