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.