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      December 18, 2022A.E. HinesThe Night the Lights Went Out in Moore County, North Carolina

      These must be dark times if you think
      shooting up a substation and blacking out
       
      the lights will shut-down a drag show.
      Have you ever been to a drag show?
       
      Yes, there will be singing. Even in the dark.
      Unflappable queens black-belting Beyonce
       
      and Madonna, hovering in the quivered
      glow of bar top candles, silver beams
       
      from a hundred mobile phones showering
      them like bedazzled songbirds, lashes
       
      glittering like wings and lifting them
      from a thin nest of stars on the soft breeze
       
      of applause and our waving dollar bills.
      We’ve labored in the night long enough
       
      to know how to fashion our own halos.
      Make our own light. I doubt you’ve ever
       
      dropped a copper penny to preserve
      a vase of daises, or know a jigger of vodka
       
      brings valentine roses back to their feet,
      but know you’ll find no wilting flowers here,
       
      just at the edge of the stage. With its green
      stiffened spine, the boozy and voluptuous
       
      tulip takes no bows. With outstretched petals
      outlasting gravity and death, it refuses to bend.

      from Poets Respond

      A.E. Hines

      “The recent domestic terrorist attack on two power substations in rural North Carolina, and its proximity to wide-spread messages of hate and intolerance surrounding a local drag performance, left thousands without power for days, and stoked fear among the local queer community—especially in the wake of the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado. Of course, the show (picketed by fanatics) still went on in Southern Pines—even in the dark—as the drag artists calmly led attendees in a sing-a-long under the spotlights of their patrons’ iPhones. This reminded me of the lines by Bertolt Brecht: ‘In the dark times / will there also be singing? / Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.’ And this became the spark for this poem.”

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