The Tender Button Bar - a queer poem by Sara Hardy

 



This poem plays off Gertrude Stein's codes for making love with Alice B Toklas ('cow' and 'button'); it also gives a nod to Joelle Taylor's raunchy yet fragile depiction of dykes in bars. See book references at the end.

The Tender Button Bar  - by Sara Hardy 

Two wives walk into a bar

Hand in hand

    speaking their day with word play

yoo hoo coo hoo woo hoo

     tending their intention

     with finger-press and word-caress

                       understanding

 

*

Bois boys girls girrls other other

         highlight their faces and find their places     moving through the bar

King of spades Queen of clubs Ring of diamonds Jack of all trades

         bruise or amuse

  as  they    rend & mend   rend & mend     each other’s hearts

 

*

A butch lesbian walks into the bar

buttoned waistcoat   black tie sharp   blue sky shirt  

jacket with a pocket full of secrets:

     notes on existence & resistance

      notes on alerts & alarms    

(the lethal stare the clenched fist the lifting boot)

         notes on sirens & Sirens

(she’ll be a drunken sailor this night)

 

*

Two lipstick lesbians order drinks at the bar

their lipstick already merged

      because they lip-sticked      as             they              came

 

*

Two old lesbians mount the stair

Gertrude and Alice    Alice and Gertrude

feather-down of eiderdown rising & falling   rising & falling

       My wife has a tender button

       Tenderly I undo her by un-doing

pearls of friction

Gertrude has a lifting belly, lifting belly

Alice has a cow, has a cow has a cow

       My wife has a cow in her un-doing

       My wife has three cows now

       Four!

sultry afternoon beneath the eiderdown

cow cow cow cow

       She is tired now

       I am tired now

sultry afternoon of mew

moo cooo  oooo

yooooo

      

*  

A person walks into the bar wearing a vintage slip of silk & lace

      red leather mini-skirt, red retro slingbacks

              braided locks

                   and a full hennaed

         beard

No body glares or stares or pouts or shouts as the person

                                          waves to someone

                                                                        waiting at the bar

 

*

She cruises the mirror on the back-bar wall

         assessing the styles of the sartorial

looking for clues of amuse or enthuse

                                                            (looking for love, reflected love)

the Sartorialist as Con-Artist   assessing     processing:

                          the dressed-up   the messed-up  

                                 finery as queer divine-ary   designedly non-binary

                                                                                       (looking for love, reflected love)

              as she cruises the mirror on the back-bar wall

 

*

Two lesbians spill out of the bar

                    cheeks flushed red rose red rose red

                    skin petal soft, her cheek, her cheek

Goodnight lovelies

                                            Goodnight

arm in arm     moo coo cooing          into the evening

She says: Yes, I’d like that

Yes?

Yes

Their lips meet with a yes & yes

They say Yes

Let us, the bold one says, let us –

  smudge our fragrances

  friction our petals

  smooth ourselves into each other’s innermost    self

  tantalise each orb and curl

          each curve and spiral

let us rise as a lifting undulation of adoration –

                beyond why

                     beyond meaning to a be-coming becoming

Sounds good the other one says, let’s go!

 And they hasten

               moo coo cooing    moo coo cooing     moo   coo    cooing

away from the bar

          Goodnight lovelies

                                                                 Goodnight

 

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 


 

                ‘as a wife has a cow: a love story’ – Gertrude Stein

                            ‘a woman buttons her waistcoat over a body of sky’ – Joelle Taylor

References to quotes: As a Wife Has a Cow: a love story – is the title of a prose poem dated 1926; Tender Buttons - is the title of grouped poems dated 1914, both in Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein, Edited by Carl Van Vechten, Vintage Books. 

C+nto & Othered Poems by Joelle Taylor, Saqi Books – winner of the T S Elliot Prize 2021; the quoted line is from Vitrine poem vi.

Copyright Sara Hardy, 16/08/2022.  First published in Antithesis Journal 'Tender' vol 32, 2022, University of Melbourne.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Secretive-Life-Sara-Hardy-ebook/dp/B09DKLSH93

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