Iris Nguyễn
West Point
Boy sheds his uniform and revels in skin
purpling, concrete shadow of his cross
thrust into the border of another.
You’re deer-hearted, clumsy
elbow jolt of your jabs
the only pain your hands can draw
but this is how you learn to fight—
studying the haft of his shoulder.
Red-toothed dance of him
leading you through everything
he knows of boyhood, the bruises
tender proof of what you are not.
Look—take a pen, trace the mountains.
The sky appears in ink. The summer is lush
with poolside nights you spend this way, sketching
my body in negative, feigning boyish
reckless and calling it brave;
but you will always fear this
afterlife, when autumn settles
on your chest—the men who will come,
empty my voice, cut my hair,
chisel your shape from my rib
and love him, this brotherhood a promise,
a window, anything sharp when broken.
Icarus walks
Understand that Icarus wants
not the sun but the mountains behind—
holsters her battered legs into the same old
boots, worn down by her love
for the breathless high of tall things. Icarus walks,
sits down at the top chiseling herself
a new set of lungs from the cliffside,
her eyes marbled smooth by the miles.
She makes the blisters into a kind
of comfort. a way to be wordless
in a body, and present too.
On an empty stomach, Icarus watches herself
pick apart the bones of her disgust,
maps it out to brow, throat, every last
tangled echo of a beard she refuses to grow.
She wears sundresses like the boy once
wore wings, more exposed than clothed,
has been worn thin chasing the sun’s gaze
& at the summit, she can still hear him—
Air-sick son, from shoulder-blade you carved
wings, mistook lightheadedness for flight.
The skyline drips from the veins of every last
brother who tried to stitch himself to
the clouds before you, the hills
lined with men who wet their thirst with rain.
Beneath the sun, Icarus soaks into her shirt,
brings the horizon to her lips.
Icarus hates how they end her story
in freefall—like a lesson, maybe, in wants.
She tells strangers on the mountain
a new tale—how she dragged herself to
the shoreline, found a shelter in her
own shattered legs, the rain dotting
the beach dark, wetting her exposed bones.
Self-portrait as 500-year-old Bones
Truth is, I wanted to keep my joy
where you can’t reach it—
500 years of roots in the soil
of my mother’s garden, swelling with
jasmine petals for a pot of tea, another
line etched into my lover’s smile
by inside joke sunset afterglow
and yes, every drop of my strength
turned to crystal in my daughter’s bones.
I wanted my skin in tatters, proof
a girl’s memory will last
beyond the damp weight of her body,
inked into every page written
by the sisters she leaves behind.
But since you’ve found me,
praise the grace of an end
that left your labs with nothing
to study besides my empty cage.
iris nguyễn (they/she/chị/em) is a transfem poet living in New Brunswick. she found a loose thread on her body and hasn't stopped pulling since. their work has been published in fifth wheel press, the lickety~split, and others. she can be found on twitter @acensusofstars or at ih-cn.carrd.co