the indignity lying
in not being invited back over
Nothing is new, least of all a world. Empire’s
propaganda litters highways stretched through
a Vegas Costco Gas from a drive-up
It’s good like gold teeth in the mouth of my manager
barking orders over the headset in the drive through,
Dr. So & So says that soon I’ll get
better at being better, & God knows
my hairdresser is envious of my hair,
humid and thick and too much, again.
My grandfather died this morning.
I had not seen him in over five years.
Not since coming out as trans
to who I used to call my family.
the eyes followed me like a bee starved for honey
with their saccharine solicitations until the time was right
Gay men, I am told, have no sense of direction—
our feminine instinct relies on landmarks to guide us
this is for the chain strangled in your daddy chest hair
the white cutlass red velvet
seats and interior the naked
A woman’s real first lesson about her body is nothing to write home about. The second lesson, one of colonization.
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I’m the Tejano riding your horse without a saddle. I’m hanging
onto horsehair. I’m the flame on your lasso. My horse kicks me
up at the moon & I let go. I fall back to Earth. All scorched.
there’s heaven, and there’s you. standing in the light and
holding a tupperware of soup. kin: the sound of someone
leaning against me in the late afternoon—this evening, it is you
New address finally. I stood in the middle
of the room & held out my arms before
me as if welcoming someone home. I could
do things like that now, give myself a small
signs you might be trans:
you only ever got in your dad’s pool wearing a baggy tshirt and his old red swim trunks, drawstrings tied as tight as possible
I was one of 10 mermaids. They dressed me in a two-piece turquoise costume, my chest visible behind the beads.
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pewter cummerbund ; unbridled holy water
remind me to stop wearing
jewelry in the shower
Forty-two Dresden Plates, all overfilled
with feed-sack florals. Depression posies pressed
we’re two cauliflowers jumping over
the cracks in the sidewalk.
we’re two asparagus needling our way between
The lifeless part of me
pulls a chair next to the dead
buried in you, asks How
you been? which means