Labryinth

Kay Spiritual Life Center outdoor landscaping / walking the labyrinth / walking the labyrinth in

the morning on lunch break in the evening / walking the labyrinth on the phone walking the

labyrinth listening to music walking the labyrinth looking for virtual creatures walking the

labyrinth reminding myself it’s not so bad walking the labyrinth whispering affirmations walking

the labyrinth thinking about rent walking the labyrinth don’t leave me walking the labyrinth kill

all landlords walking the labyrinth desperately in love walking the labyrinth furious at being in

love walking the labyrinth desperately furious walking the labyrinth desperate walking the

labyrinth before walking home (temporary) walking home (temporary) walking through the

labyrinth walking through the labyrinth back to work walking through the labyrinth very

carefully walking through the labyrinth with big wild steps walking through walking walking

through walking the walking through walking to walking / labyrinth

i am a threat to fauna / my mile is anywhere between 9 to 7.5 minutes / i see the grey fox on the

trail before i see it is a grey fox i see it / raccoon cat coyote fox blur so far away and then not / i

see it it sees me and it sees me as a threat and it runs and i run and i see it and it sees me and it

runs but i run and i am / so close i could touch it

woken up to the sound of screaming in Lawrence / woken up to the sound of screaming in

Fayetteville / woken up to the sound of screaming in Denver/ woken up to the sound of

screaming in DC / woken up to the sound of screaming in Laramie / woken up to the sound of

screaming collapsing not like a building like a layer cake like one scream on top of another like

pressing down on the soft dirt like tamp tamp tamp like laying mulch like / did you know they

screamed like us? / yes like us / yes like you might mistake them for a woman / like / yes / i did

and i didn’t - i have heard it before and every time i hear it anew

walking the labyrinth walking through the labyrinth walking to the labyrinth walking / make my

legs the labyrinth make my arms the labyrinth make the labyrinth my legs my arms my walk my

threat / stretch and break and bend and center / moving a mile every 9 to 7.5 minutes / safe safe

safe safe safe

Contemporary Trans Poetics

something about my body, something about my soul, something about my oppression, something

about my sex life, something about my mother, something about my father, something about my

imaginary mother and father who are either the invoked phantoms of dead Trans Elders or

simply my mother and father but Not Them in some specific way, something about history,

something about politics, something about resistance, something about anger, something about

joy, something about sadness, something about suicide, something about survival

which is to say / By which I mean

I have been studying form. How best, then, to explain?

something about egg yolks, something about Jesus, something about Saturday night, something

about laughing, something about dyeing my hair, something about lovers, something about

friends, something about music, something about a certain slant of light, something about my

apartment, something about my dog, something about the air in spring and watching the eagles

over the river from the levee trail where I’m paused on the empty boat ramp so early in the

morning that the mist is shifting over the water like a worm, something about community

something about being the subject / being subject

which is to say by which I mean it’s all the same in the end, in a poem anyway