Claire Heinzerling
Another Trans Poem
i refuse to write another trans poem.
i will not write about my softening ridges;
Not a line about the silhouette i’ll chase
Until the day i die,
Nor about the woman who smiles back in knowing grace
From every dark windowpane.
And when her smile turns to leer,
i will not spill from my self-given wounds,
Silken and sheened,
Onto flat white page.
My womanhood is mine to keep, though i
May, from time to time, lose it among
Loose thoughts caught somewhere
Between carcass and ash.
i will admit to having written about my body
And the dresses draped over it
In the past–but no more.
i will lock those bright pinks, the frills i still mistake
For self, behind steel’s ice,
No longer to be taken out and played with
Whenever my pen sees fit.
Yes, I will only write. About blue storm. And
Sun-orange calm. The lifelike grays.
Of a lake not yet disturbed.
By willful stones. Or anxious toes.
Or the breath the breath the breath
Of starlight on my tongue.
Previously published by Powders Press
