Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
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…
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…
Paisley climbed out the attic window with a pillow to sit on and a Negroni in a sippy cup. Her cushion slipped on the angled asphalt shingle, so she planted her bare feet on the grit and leaned against the house. A mouthful of the cocktail blossomed on her tongue. Campari and orange peel softened the gin. The gin softened her. The night was mostly…
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…
Photo by Leandra Rieger on Unsplash