The Mortician in San Francisco
This may sound queer,
but in 1985 I held the delicate hands
of Dan White:
I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk
was made monument—no, myth—by the years
since he was shot.
I remember when Harvey was shot:
twenty, and I knew I was queer.
Those were the years,
Levi’s and leather jackets holding hands
on Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk—
elected on the same day as Dan White.
I often wonder about Supervisor White,
who fatally shot
Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk,
who was one of us, a Castro queer.
May 21, 1979: a jury hands
down the sentence, seven years—
in truth, five years—
for ex-cop, ex-fireman Dan White,
for the blood on his hands;
when he confessed that he had shot
the mayor and the queer,
a few men in blue cheered. And Harvey Milk?
Why cry over spilled milk,
some wondered, semi-privately, for years—
it meant “one less queer.”
The jurors turned to White.
If just the mayor had been shot,
Dan might have had trouble on his hands—
but the twelve who held his life in their hands
maybe didn’t mind the death of Harvey Milk;
maybe, the second murder offered him a shot
at serving only a few years.
In the end, he committed suicide, this Dan White.
And he was made presentable by a queer.
About this poem
Harvey Milk was an activist, organizer, and the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States.
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Written on 2009
Submitted by Drone232 on May 22, 2022
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 1:15 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECBFAD DEACFB BDFECA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,248 |
Words | 251 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
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"The Mortician in San Francisco" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/128028/the-mortician-in-san-francisco>.
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