Free Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals by Patricia Lockwood

The Whole World Gets Together and Gangbangs a Deer
    Bambi is fresh from the countryside. Bambi is fresh
    and we want him on film. He doesn’t even know
    how to kiss yet. “Lean in and part your lips,” we say,
    â€œand pull a slow strip off a tree.” We shine our biggest
    spotlight on him, our biggest spotlight is the sun.
    And under the spotlight the deer drips sweat, and what
    do deer like more than salt. “Now look at the fawn
    and grow an antler,” we patiently instruct him. “It will
    grow from your thoughts like the ones on your head.”
    Oh Bambi says the fawn, oh Bambi. Fresh grass-stains
    around the young mouth. Every deer gets called Bambi
    at least once in its life, every deer must answer to Bambi,
    every deer hears don’t kill Bambi, every deer hears don’t
    eat Bambi, every deer hears LOOK OH LOOK it’s Bambi.
    When the deer all die they will die of genericide, of one
    baby name for the million of them. Then women begin
    to be called Bambi, and then deer understand what women
    are like: light-shafts of long blond hair and long legs.
    The sun piercing through the Bavarian trees and the sun
    touching down on the dewy green ground. Then women
    begin to be called Fawn, and then women begin to say
    Bambi oh Bambi. And their mouths are open and they
    gape like a mouth when it takes a big bite of spring green.
    The spotlight shines down through the trees in long legs.
    This is the first movie most of us see. Small name
    for a small deer: Bambi. Sometimes he feels
all
the deer
    could fit inside him. The movie we are making is this one:
    all the deer in one deer one after another. Subtitles
    so we know what his soft sounds are saying. Mostly he says
    THE MEADOW, THE MEADOW! like the women who are
    Bambi say GOD OH GOD. What they mean is a wide open
    space, a great clearing. All the deer and us watching in a great
    open field. A great wide clearing in the face of the deer
    says THE MEADOW, THE MEADOW! and all of us watching.
    The deer’s mouths moving as if they are reading.
    But no, they are eating the grass.

He Marries the Stuffed-Owl Exhibit at the Indiana Welcome Center
    He marries her mites and the wires in her wings,
    he marries her yellow glass eyes and black centers,
    he marries her near-total head turn, he marries
    the curve of each of her claws, he marries
    the information plaque, he marries the extinction
    of this kind of owl, he marries the owl
    that she loved in life and the last thought of him
    in the thick of her mind
    just one inch away from the bullet, there,
    he marries the moths
    who make holes in the owl, who have eaten the owl
    almost all away, he marries the branch of the tree
    that she grips, he marries the real-looking moss
    and dead leaves, he marries the smell of must
    that surrounds her, he marries the strong blue
    stares of children, he marries nasty smudges
    of their noses on the glass, he marries the camera
    that points at the owl to make sure no one steals her,
    so the camera won’t object when he breaks the glass
    while reciting some vows that he wrote himself,
    he screams OWL instead of I’LL and then ALWAYS
    LOVE HER, he screams HAVE AND TO HOLD
    and takes hold of the owl and wrenches the owl
    away from her branch
    and he covers her in kisses and the owl
    thinks, “More moths,” and at the final hungry kiss,
    â€œThat must have been the last big bite, there is no more
    of me left to eat and thank God,” when he marries
    the stuffing out of the owl and hoots as the owl flies out
    under his arm, they elope into the darkness of Indiana,
    Indiana he screams is their new life and WELCOME.
    They live in a tree together now, and the children of
    Welcome to Indiana say who even more than usual,
    and the children of Welcome to Indiana they wonder
    where they belong. Not in Indiana, they say to themselves,
    the state of all-consuming love, we cannot belong in Indiana,
    as night falls and the moths appear one by one, hungry.

An