with fats around my organs lightly hair grown on my shoulders lightly death in all my actions as I build a log-store shirtless in the autumn. I hate this gathering and deepening beneath my pale tabard; boyhood gone and with it all my girlishness: hands- on-the-headphones-dance-move/ lasso-move-and-shimmy; now my hips thrust solemn as lorries gather in a layby to discuss my remaining options. I cannot leave the barbecue unsupervised as I focus on ignoring my body in the changing-rooms. Not one of the maximum eight permitted items fits me nicely. Handsome is for horses, house plants, hotels, tall and deco in dreamy pastel shades. I’ve never wanted to fight anyone ever, or be real this way and mean it. I just want to bellow love unbridled, an elk beneath an overpass, and retire my life gently, so that capable hands need not lift much soil or sadness.
This poem is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
