II Selected poems
The Surgeonfish
I'll bring up the photos, the surgeon said, just of what to expect in the recovery process. I swim a little in his Aussie accent, strangely reassuring, dipping my toes into the water and finding it unseasonably warm.
Clitoris, he says, or more like clid-er-us, the word rolling out of his mouth smoothly, as smoothly as my tongue might lick someone else's, given half a chance. This doesn't feel like surgery, even when he shows me photos of girls immediately post-op, talks about 500-700 mL of average blood loss, most girls don't need a transfusion, you can see the drains in this photo here, we've moved the tube off to one side so you can see the clid-er-us more clearly.
I ask some questions, you know, the usual practical stuff, like What impression do you think my new cunt would give to someone forcefully inspecting it in an ambulance on the tarmac at Qatar's Hamad International Airport?
After some more idle chit-chat, the surgeon tells me about eight inches depth with self-lubrication, some of the younger girls insist on it and I paraphrase in my head Some of the younger girls want a dripping wet fuck tunnel ready for the unrelenting onslaught of monstrous cocks the universe will inevitably supply.
I drift further out into the comforting ocean, looking not so much at but through the surgeon, still monologuing about cock-hungry cumsluts on my Zoom screen. Now he seems not so much a surgeon as a surgeonfish, all blue and black beauty with yellow highlights, swimming around me as I look on with dreamy intrigue.
Look, I'm really just interested in the labiaplasty, I say, partly because there's less complications and the recovery is quicker.
Okay, the surgeonfish says, glancing at the watch held somehow by his left fin. I still have a little time, so let's do this. It will take some getting used to, sitting down to pee, riding a horse, that kind of thing. Six weeks maybe, and more like six months to feel and look "normal", making air quotes with his fins. Luckily we're doing this over Zoom so you're far enough away you won't even feel my scalpel.
But I feel the twinge and bleed into the salty ocean, which stings against the fresh opening between my legs. I bleed, 500-700 mL, just as he predicted. I feel pressure, not pain but poking and pulling and goings-on. Soon I feel the tightening, being sewn up and re-connected. I wonder at the new sensations down there, floating in the warm sea, watching as the surgeonfish darts around me, this way and that. Some other fish pass by, seemingly oblivious to the transformation under way.
And that's about it, we're done. The ladies will email you through some details and pricing.
I reach down, finding soft womanhood between my legs. Time to swim back to shore.
Ode to a Katsu Sando
Sugary white bread, puffy, devoid of nutrition.
Crust easy to hold, reassuringly firm, the way exposed facets of things naturally develop, like rust, a sacrifice to protect what's vulnerable inside.
Crunchy cabbage strands, sliced as if a skilled artist hijacked the task. An occasional piece falls onto my chin or torso, like a lover's wiry twisted pubic hair, fallen victim to the passion of my hunger.
Sometimes I meet you as a ritualistic debaucherous celebration. Sometimes in anticipation, for power, luck, and encouragement to persist, sustenance to fight in the front-line of great battles and to sail over unknown seas.
Sticky brown sauce, on my chin and fingers. My sometimes-vegan lips bloodied, dripping with the mildly tart sweetness of your syrup.
Someone once offered me a side dish to eat, alongside you. Affronted, but too polite to outright refuse, I granted it space to rest on the table near you, a delicacy in a pottery dish with crackled glaze like a heavy snow splitting into chunks on a steep rooftop, and it stayed there, abandoned, as I couldn't bear to taste anything else in your presence.
I bite into your heart, a juiciness I love but try to resist. Textures swirl into a gluttonous whirlpool deep inside me, where I hold you and we become indistinguishable.
Max
I saw a boy, and his mum, at the park.
I saw a boy, rainbow socks, a funky haircut, close by his mum, at the park.
I saw a trans boy, rainbow socks, trans pride pin on the collar of his shirt, mud clinging to his spiked soccer boots and grazes on his right shin. An undercut, sculpted, stylish haircut. His mum's arm around him, smiles and love amongst the other families, Great game Max, c'mon, let's go at the park.
Then I saw what looked like a boy, frames of memories flashing up like in a dream, superimposed over reality like the latest phone app gimmick. The same exact place, but another era, another me, where the parameters of safety meant being invisible was inevitable.
I stayed inside a self-induced coma four decades until the danger receded. It transpires, that boy-shaped figure who was never a boy found herself, but without rainbow socks, without her mum's arm around her, without the smiles and love. By coincidence, her brother was Max and her father too, who never loved her and who never knew.
Beechwood
Today we painted your study, pink-grey Beechwood covering old blue. Amongst your dusty things, your craft cutting-board, idly taking up space, unusably bent, four months of hot sea-voyage destroying it. You could not throw it away. Right next to it, a framed, numbered print: golden yellows and orange, tall trees by Shomei Yoh, a happy delight we adored, forgotten. The picture's frame damaged too by the long journey from Japan, but we will of course restore it and show it proudly again. Our love cracked some more at around that time, and I wonder, can we repair it too?
Transmission to another galaxy
Away from the new moon, my eyes adjust to the dark and I search the sky for you, knowing you're out there in a place that looks dark, with the distance between us.
My orbit has altered, caught amongst the gravity of bodies I'd tried to escape. Time is an illusion now, the length of our days tied to our nearest star.
