Gender & Sexuality

crossword

a woman moves through dog rose and juniper bushes,
a pussy clean and folded between her legs,
breasts like the tips of her festive shoes
shine silently in her heavy armoire.

one blackbird, one cow, one horse.
the sea beats against the wall of the waterless.
she walks to a phone booth that waits
a fair distance from all three villages.

it’ s a game she could have heard on the radio:
a question, a number, an answer, a prize.
her pussy reaches up and turns on the light in her womb.

To Be Walang Hiya

Bubblegum lip gloss kissed, Our lifelines, our mirrors,

I was never a singkil princess These are Luminous Mysteries —

Knuckle cracking, polished toes, Our notebooks, our language,

I was never a Santacruzan queen To witness, to make way,

Black eyeliner, push up bra Our thirst and our wedding bands —

I was never a curtsying debutante To fill stone jars with water, to wed,

To Mary Sidney, On Reading Her Psalms

You give me a little courage, Mary,
in your skittish dedication to her highness;
I too can dare as humbleness may dare;
if there’ s anywhere to speak with you, it’ s here
at the wordy Anglo-Saxon periphery
of the universe’ s one great surge of praise

though I’ m lost here. Where’ s the joyful noise?
the syllables I managed to memorize
before they were weighted down by meaning?
and what’ s all this complicated rhyme?
Don’ t mistake me — I’ m not complaining;
it’ s just not my notion of a psalm

A Historical Footnote to Consider Only When All Else Fails

While it is true
(though only in a factual sense)
That in the wake of a
Her-I-can comes a
Shower
Surely I am not
The gravitating force
that keeps this house
full of panthers

Why, LBJ has made it
quite clear to me
He doesn’ t give a
Good goddamn what I think
(else why would he continue to masterbate in public?)

Emily Hardcastle, Spinster

We shall come tomorrow morning, who were not to have her love,
We shall bring no face of envy but a gift of praise and lilies
To the stately ceremonial we are not the heroes of.

Let the sisters now attend her, who are red-eyed, who are wroth;
They were younger, she was finer, for they wearied of the waiting
And they married them to merchants, being unbelievers both.

Birdsong, face it, some male machine

Birdsong, face it, some male machine
gone addled — repeat, repeat — the damage
keeps doing, the world ending then starting,
the first word the last, etc. It's that

etcetera. How to love. Is a wire
just loose? Build an ear for that. Fewer, they say.
So many fewer, by far. He's showing off
to call her back. Or claiming the tree.

No Promissory Notes

The word penis is probably the most misattributed word in
English, I think. Because almost nobody has a real one.
The standards are made in Japanese or German factories.

Womb/vagina sets are unusual too if genuine.
Standards are from China; they are recycled sheepskin wallets.
I was shocked too when I heard this.

I do not have an actual either but they called
me a genius when I figured it out about the fetal
lamb/sheep skin. What else to do with all the wallets

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