Devil’s Rope, Laramie, 1998
October
A chill breeze comes off the Rockies
My ruddy wires cast shadows from the warrior moon
A quiet night
A truck pulls up
You and two others stagger out
They tower over you
Push you
Threaten you
Growl
FAGGOT
ON YOUR KNEES
Your face at their crotches
You plead
They pull out their
Gun
Raise it
Bash the butt
Into your head
your head
your head
You crumple
They drag you, toss you
Onto me
I sag, hold your unconscious weight
Doors slam
Engine starts
Tires spin up dirt
They’re gone
We’re alone
Your arms thrown backwards over me
My taut wire cuts into your armpits
barbs tear your shirt and skin
Your head hangs listless
Your breath
Rough
Ragged
Irregular
Shivering
Shaking
Convulsing
Your spasms pulse through me
Then
Still
Limp
Seeping blood
Cold night
I can offer
No help
No warmth
Only presence
In the faintest dawn
A passing runner, pauses, wonders
Is that a scarecrow?
Sees it is a boy
Goes for help
Sirens
Police
Flashing lights
Ambulance
Useless
We’re entangled
I quiver as you're lifted
Carried away
Clinging to life
Bits of your clothes
flesh
blood
On me, left behind
Cars arrive
Candles
A vigil
Days and nights
A stream of mourners
River of mourners
Flood of mourners
Months pass
Still they come
We spent a night together
Your last night out
Out
Under the vast sky you loved so much
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard
-- Larry Wolf, 30 June 2025
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| Larry Wolf, Held (Zine Photo 2025/Fence Photo 2010) |
An earlier version of this poem was read at Maine Media Workshops on June 27, 2025, at the conclusion of The Photographic Poem with Richard Blanco.
The above photo is of my zine Rough Raw Reclaimed (2021). The text, on the inside of the zine, reads:
Tear Streaked Cheeks
On a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming, a man was beaten and left to die on a cold October night, 1998. Matthew Shepard became the poster child of gay hate crimes. There were candlelight vigils – organized all too quickly and too well. We should not be so good at this public mourning and outcry. Enough is enough.
The trial. The protestors chanting hell for the homosexual. The angelic counter-protests. His parents. Their compassion. Their determination. The plays, art, chorale works and politics that followed.
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act became law in 2009. Two brutal deaths in 1998, one homophobic, one racist. A decade. Another decade. Much still to do.
An Earlier View from the Fence
Jeff Sheng's MFA Thesis Exhibition included a large forty foot wide by six foot high digitally constructed panoramic photographic installation, titled "Where Matthew Lay Dying: Laramie, Wyoming," originally shot and taken from the spot and vantage point where the hate crime/murder victim Matthew Shepard was found on a fence post outside Laramie, Wyoming.
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