Nativity

in the dream where I run without breasts I am motivated by flight, I haven’t yet begun to unweld the framework, invent new trauma, whip the stitch arching each bosom as victuals dangled, withheld. when I hemorrhage against design it ain’t incognito. the neighbors walk their dogs past me. that’s me smoking in the alley, letting roses from my wrists. petal to puddle, a misgendering of matter. these hooves unhinge themselves as tiny meteors to cudgel dusk. I redress the splintering woodwork notched to my likeness, venial beneath the pomme and lilac cornucopic delight. to partake in a gender, to do so as a participant, and to fashion one’s self a living process of gender is like casting a net of postures, adornment objects, and grooming techniques into a future tense. where have I gone, and who have I built to take my place? I’ve always been unsuccessful at it. the tossing of it. I throw rocks ahead of me and predict where they will land. by virtue of touch, I am every man I manufactured my difference from. the man slipping in the mirror’s moonshine enters and leaves me between my double take. every night the countryside plays against my eyelids. a recurring taunt against my current location, the finale, currents of corn lapping the sun against my arms pumping with youth. the site of my making.