When folks try to lobby the idea that queerness is “unnatural,” I have to laugh. The animal world cannot be reduced to a Noah’s Ark version of either being or relationality. I want this poem to offer my rebuttal while drawing on one of nature’s most eloquent - and queer - advocates, who was also my first guide into writing poetry.

Maggie Rue Hess is a graduate student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dogs. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Minnesota Review, Connecticut River Review, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, is forthcoming from Belle Point Press in 2024. 

I: @maggierue_