another publication for this poem x

Squared /  for Ellyott
Things have changed since
Van Limburgstirumplein last saw us 
cycling around her
I sit to sip overpriced coffee
hoping I can still see
your cheeks puff
up front on a giant homemade bike 
me with my
over stuffed rucksack
dangling from the back
two foreign girls
escaping our governments
looking for life lasting love
and finding it
in each other’s
secret world faces
Ellyott, my lover is
several inches shorter than even me 
but three times as strong
astute jockey always pushing through 
what else can a dyke woman do? 
over tram tracks
careful never to get stuck
the number ten
to Javaplein
which too has been
reclaimed from the squatters 
renovated and rebranded
reblended into Amsterdam green  
these days’ dykes are not so strange  
everybody is somewhere
on the queer spectrum range

integration is the new normal
as everyone assimilates our fists
and to be fair our old enemy capitalism
never needed homophobia as an excuse
to kick anyone where it hurts most
we, like the Moroccans have been priced out 
way beyond the railway tracks
unless we have money
when we are welcome
to spend in the sunset lit square
nice bikes sitting upright tidy in their racks 
adorn the advertising pumping station
as if it has always been
like this there
not filled with junkies their gums burned bare 
the Kemperstraat stands far too quiet 
without her graffiti minded sluts
near the Avondwinkel in
need of more than
a lick of paint
the number of bridges getting smaller
as the city council carts
all homeless looking damaged bikes away
the cries of freedom from restraint
have all grown faint
but the pigeons circle
the square indifferently
just the same.