Dreams of Revanchism

Irene Villaseñor

I regret that I

did not get to steal

Columbitch's gold teeth

and throw him off the

roof of our safe house

 

my father did not

stand his ground so a

dictator ruined

everyone's lives now

 

my friends plot out

my legal career

Ivy League chill then

summers in hostile

states where few of us

can advocate or

defend ourselves

 

I am a lazy

cybersecurity

expert but at least

I know where to go

report murder plots

after stumbling

upon them online

 

because I refused

to teach at colleges

Nazis I know took

those jobs and

the younger and less

experienced don't

know what I do here

 

I'm no innocent

but wish I wasn't the

one always called for

emergencies yet

wherever I go

I am called doctor

 

Irene Villaseñor's writing appears in Queer Nature: An Ecoqueer Poetry Anthology, My Phone Lies to Me: Fake News Poetry Workshops as Radical Digital Media Literacy, Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, Nat. Brut, The Journal for Latina Critical Feminism, The Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought, and elsewhere. She’s received fellowships from Lambda Literary and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She’s on twitter @IreneSenor.