quantum bits:
the either/and/or
particles of being
instantly transmitted
across space—
attraction’s valences
revealed only
when observed
LGBTQIA+
encryptions
too deep to hack:
the anywhere
between M and F,
the Mother Father
God please quit
asking what
I am other than
estranged
and stranded,
your splintered
lover
eternally
seeking/avoiding
entanglement.
David Southward is the second-place winner of the 2021 Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Contest. He teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His publications include Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020) and Apocrypha, a sonnet sequence based on the Gospels (Wipf & Stock 2018).
Wisconsin Academy Offices
1922 University Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin 53726
Phone: 608.733.6633
James Watrous Gallery
3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street
Madison, WI 53703
Phone: 608.733.6633 x25
