Frankenstein’s Monster and the Things We Don’t Know

I don’t know a trans guy who wants bottom surgery. I don’t know a trans guy who knows what it entails. I know eight trans guys who did a brief Google image search before clearing their history and slamming their laptop shut. I know seven if you don’t count me.  It was easy in Maryland because there were so few of us. It was me…

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Cry Goat

We stopped playing basketball as soon as Pastor Rigo shepherded a goat into the church’scourtyard. The creature was past its prime: its teeth were yellow banana Chiclets; its horns stuckout thick and gnarled like croissants; and its hooves chipped at the ends of its toes like bittencaramel apples. Yet all I could think of was what Uncle Daniel, Rigo’s brother, had told me:“Make sure to…

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Nasturtiums and the Hidden Dagger

I. In the dust and the dirtof the orchard floor, there wasa beautiful red beetle    — and it did not move. Amid a little world’s scatterand frenzy, here was something     — a word for silentcomes to mind: unmoving. A letteruninflected. Not a breath,no release: just a consonant— still. He dug a finger into the dust andpushed the little red beetle in.A brush…

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