When I was 45, I had to declare my sexual orientation to my dinner companion. It was a weeknight and I’d just had a delicious meal and satisfying conversation with an accountant who’d become a friend and colleague, and we were walking back to my place, when she announced her crush on me and asked me out.

We both knew that she is gay and I am not. I said something like, “I’m flattered, but as you know I’m straight.” She responded with, “Are you sure?”

I’ll admit I stammered a little. But I came right back with, “Yeah I’m sure. I’m 45. I think I know by now.”

Since then I’ve had to come out as a straight woman many more times than my several lesbian friends have had to disclose their orientation. I always smile. I always experience a moment of sardonic emotion. I declare my heterosexuality promptly and clearly and I often hope aloud that I deserve to be called straight-but-not-narrow. I find it most effective to opine that I’m a gay woman trapped in a straight body. That’s usually met with a moment of silence and an appreciative grin.

If I were gay I’d never be alone.
The lesbians have courted me for years
with candles, incense, invitations, leers
of gentle greediness. My telephone
too often carries waver, giggle, moan
or sigh. I’d dance forever, it appears,
if I could only shift my joining gears
to like, but I am drawn to the unknown.

They want to think I’m body-straight but gay
in fact inside. It isn’t that complex.
The visions in my head are clear and true.
As sure as I am sitting here today,
I’m velvet-coating iron-dreaming sex,
consumed by choreographies of you.