They, of whom I speak, number more than before Stonewall,
but not as many as they will be any time in the near future.
Their bodies are the same, anatomically; but
their souls are so exquisitely individuated---like
sky's stars, all differentiated yet all the same.
But, unlike you and your cronies, Comrade Cho,
these---who are recalled in this poem---will not
attempt to suppress God, dissent, or uncensored news;
they will not raise a tower of abrasive concrete
buttressed by the cold steel of precisely fabricated beams.
Lines they establish will tend toward Poetry;
not to the assembling of bits, bores and barrels in some factory.
J-Called