or, Poem Written After Googling “How Do I Know If I Am Trans?”
Poetry by Noelle Hendrickson
Sunday evenings are for trespassing onto lakeshore properties
before realizing that answers are not found in piles
of rotting fish. Visualize. (The goal here, the subversive goal,
is to be a poet) In the morning, bird teeth will tear
the carcasses open, peel back the skin, peck deep into layers
of pink muscle, and I will remember how words
bleed out of bodies like a mockery of secret-keeping, desiring
to bounce like bullets off a breast-less chest. Butch.
The butch-ness of it all. I suppose it is not the hungry one
whom we should blame; hunger has always been
a vile concept. Rather, blame the fish for allowing their abdomens,
their gills, to pause mid-breath. Blame the shiniest ones,
split like the space between thighs. Blame the ones flapping
their fins, still gathering in the water around my bare calves
yet to be feasted upon. When you look at my breasts, I see myself
as a fish lost in self-preservation. When told that I am beautiful,
I recall how easily flesh peels. When you touched my wide hips
the fish lept, and the birds plucked them each before the dying
could begin. Visualize. At what point is it betrayal? Remember
the goal here, the subversive goal here, is to be a woman.
