Dissecting the Witch

This is a found poem that I created using only words found in the Government Printing Office's style manual. I've done 31 of these little pieces, but this one stood out to me because it was influenced by Gregory Maguire's Elphaba.


Dissecting the Witch

hazardous women

have a common basic element,

omitted

in all but the

postoperative examination

in ward D

dark

green body and

hypersensitive girllike

ambiguity,

un-duplicated

between sergeant and

solution,

with superior

figure and make-believe

mother-of-cold

in a dead-alive melodrama

a nonliteral

expression.

Want Ad

In honor of Coming Out Day, here's a poem about the moments before I came out.

Want Ad

Sitting in the booth, straw

between my fingers

I commit.

Again

with my cursor on

send, again when you ask

why.

The words dry.

I’ll hire an actress to sit

beside me,

take your hands.

My understudy, speak

my lines.

Date Lab

A little found poetry to ease me back in after a long break.


Date Lab
I felt just like a rapper
with some nice arm candy
til, like, halftime
but our brilliant plan
fizzled
and that's where it gets complicated:
a continuing search
for the elusive
do-over

Mannekenlove

This one goes out to Santana Lopez and Ann Taylor.

Mannekenlove

Don’t be cold.

Exhibition, let’s do this

in the Hollywood lights behind

the plate window.

Your pale collarbone scraped bare

by my chalky teeth.

I unlock your white skinny jeans

from behind, wrench them off

over a table, over

your high heels.

You curve like a woman but hard,

what are you.

No point of entry, I canvass

each crack, sever

your hand at the wrist

and take.

My stone fashionista, you’re not much

to hold so I dress you like a toddler

and leave,

plaster dust in my hair.

Zipper, Exposed

I just stumbled on this poem from months ago when I was cleaning out my room.

Zipper, Exposed

Unzip me, love.

I’ve built these walls of cashmere

and ponte wool,

recreated my world post-her

with ruffles and ribbon.

Black and white and teal

with fabric tiers and fraying tears

and loose buttons covered in words.

I boxed everything and left it

at her door, started over in these

pearls and chains.

But my seams are plain as ever,

you see my hiding.

I bear my zipper – pull the ribbon

and live me again.

A Future

A Future

Uncertain

Except this

Sitting as I do now

Before my computer

Writing, or maybe

Waiting for the words

Brown hair messy against the back of my head

Although I like it neat

One strand curling

Frizzing

Against my cheek

And she, faceless

Nameless

Presses against my back

And strokes that wandering strand

Away

Spatially Challenged

I wrote this back when I was making phone calls to promote the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and meeting all sorts of people. Nothing is as important as tolerance.

Spatially Challenged

From the station of the Metro

14^th street lies map-flat

but 13^th climbs sideways and up

dizzily – a man in a parka

sells incense off a wooden table

with vials of colored water –

the wide-faced girl says “I’m a tranny”

but she’s officially a woman these days

with a bloody vagina.

In this place I check my eyeballs at the door

and grope for secrets as first

impressions.

I have a bloody vagina, too, so what

does that make me?

Eclipse

Eclipse

I’ll be the world and you the moon

for you are pale and bear her name.

I’m no earth but it’s the same.

You change my tides, make me swoon.

If gravity might draw you near,

all your craters dark I’d mine

and curve cold rivers down your spine.

Wax and wane right here, right here.

Could I be wrong to speak like this?

It’s I who write your poetry

so do you really orbit me?

Our weight is equal when we kiss.

So you’re the moon and I am, too.

Much like the pair that orbit Mars

we’ll chase each other ‘round the stars.

The planets won’t know what to do –

those nosy neighbors disapprove

of two moons that at last collide

for they would travel side by side,

an emblem of forbidden love.

We cannot crash and make rock spark.

At very least we can eclipse.

In blackness we can touch our lips

and leave cruel planets in the dark.

Who cares if this they’ll e’er forgive?

We’ll find in space a space to live.

The Arsonist

The Arsonist

She burns, not

on accident.

Eyes

so green have

yellowed in the middles,

a ringed dartboard

but she’s the one

throwing.

She is

everything and takes

everyone

like Whitman except

she can’t stand poetry.

She’s lost

her virginity more times

than she can count but first

to a woman in a bar at sixteen.

Call her slut to see

her smile. She’s

flexible. She’s

the muse’s

naughty

older sister, muscles tense

with wait.

She poured the

gasoline,

struck

a match.

Potential becomes kinetic.

She dances, up

in flames.

Lens

Lens

You, caught in the act

Of changing.

Layer by layer,

disappear your

hips,

leave your torso clad in

nothing.

You, weary

eyes, accosting

the observer.

Wrinkling beneath

your young girl’s

makeup,

you ask why

me? A poet’s

lens can blur

the creases,

a camera tells

no lies.

Trust me.

Swallow

Swallow


You take the pen between your lips
into your familiar mouth
before I reach the paper
you bite down on the plastic
and tease the point with an ink-stained
tongue. For months
my poems are written nowhere
but your soft palate
the linings of your cheeks
your red mouth dripping with black.