Sylvia Rivera and Harvey Milk Answer the Crisis Hotline

for Violet

Sylvia agrees she did not die for below-knee hemlines.
Harvey insists you crack too many hate-crime jokes
then blathers on about hope. It was brutal, you say, Monday
drunk, face wiped clean, laughing. Ashley’s ready to slash tires.
You laugh again: What car? Say, I was screaming.
So Harvey’s like, You should call the cops
but Sylvia slaps his pink mouth shut. Honey, she tells me
to tell you, please just focus on tomorrow’s lesson plan. Allow me
to haunt that prick senseless. She cackles and the line clicks.

Kurt David is a current MFA candidate at The Ohio State University and former Macrorie Fellow at Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English. Before moving to Columbus, he taught at a public high school and agitated for social and climate justice as part of his teachers union. Also, he ran a queer book club called Reading Rainbow. His work has appeared in Foglifter, Split Lip, and elsewhere.