"erasure feat. uranus, neptune"
Michael Russell
Michael Russell (he / they) is Mama Bear to chapbook Grindr Opera (Frog Hollow Press). He’s queer and has BPD, Bipolar Disorder, and way too much anxiety. His work has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Homology Lit, and Plenitude, among other places. He lives in Toronto and thinks you’re fantabulous.
“‘erasure feat. uranus, neptune’ explores queer erasure by linking an event in my life with the original 1990s dub of Sailor Moon, in which Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, who are lovers in the original anime, are rewritten as cousins. It’s worth noting that no scenes in the dub were altered or deleted with this change.”
so, you two homos?
in the coffee shop, a man
butchers the air with breath,
separates the muscle-
meat of our cherry blossom
fingers. my boyfriend tells him
no. just friends
& for the rest of the night
just friends sit between us
like sawed-off branches.
as a teen i couldn’t wait
for season 3 of sailor moon.
finally! uranus & neptune.
two lovers standing
behind a theater curtain
of cherry blossoms.
rewritten & dubbed
—just friends. cousins.
when neptune tore
through the crimson
vine & told uranus
she’d never let her die,
the bullets entered—
cherry pink, her flesh
& uranus remembered
the grazed bullets
of neptune’s fingertips.
erased. swept
like cherry blossoms
across the television.
