Rumination on a Mother//Sister Tongue
My girlbody
tangled in
yolk strings
aside my
sister.
We
pulled
an embryonic
distance
between us
through a
thick of reeds
grey as
assigned biology.
I think about this
often:
our mother’s womb
like hands
digging out
the fleshy core
of pan de muerto.
In her, we grew
towards
the outer rim
of flimsy paper womb
so muted
in pink as to
appear bashful
or embarrassed
by borders,
by the
cruelty
to which our
faces
would eventually
turn
on the outside,
invisible even
when facing
each
other.
•
Towards the edge
a plate
scatters
off white
skin
and weeds
black
with lust,
drawing
full recon-
figuration:
body
lines
spirals
recede
against
knots
blood
arteries
umbilical
rivers
tubes
indistinct
like siblings
with countries
at war
with
each other’s
stained
particles
ligaments
chunks of
internal bleeding
in pieces
in water
salt dissolves
remains
a border
wet with
mother’s
organ
entrails
leaking cursive
over both
our names.
•
In a reoccurring dream, we are bulbous
shapes floating
stagnant
muddy and
sheltering flies
in upended
creek beds.
I believe my sister
told me
never give
name to
blood
as if to
share it.
I still
have siblings
I’ve never met
rooting
deep into
my girth.
If they are dead,
then I am buried too and
the lot of us are
pale spots
of land floating
like an
archipelago
beneath the ground.
•
It is no use.
If my blood sister’s
fingertips
betray reflections
of my own,
they are cursed
to stain
every surface
with oil.
For though I outlived
the salt
burn of my birth,
I remain
uncertain
of the month
my sister came, only
that it happened,
that it is as factual
as the name I
give myself.
And if my blood
sister’s mouth
resembles
in shape
my own, her
tongue remains
a stranger
unghosted by
familial misinterpretation,
meaning she
must know
this feeling too,
can spell it out
in ways I
cannot translate.
•
When
Carol,
my adoptive mother, travelled
to Beijing
with Carl
to bring home
his adopted daughter,
Carol too brought
back a dish of red
paste for me
to stamp
my name
in Hanzi with.
My name thus
became
an imprint
on every
bedroom wall,
a wound
unbandaged
and breathing.
My fingers
dragging
softly my name
into the chalk
white,
the blood of it
fading like
a mother
tongue buried
by generation.
•
The papers say the two of us
are not twins
even as I do
not reject
the idea
that we are,
in some
psychic way,
bridged by thread
at the
hipbone.
Us two (then three, then four siblings)
uncut from
the same
tired cloth,
torn
like a handful
of loose hair,
a scab
browning at
the knee.
Sister, where
do you reside?
When I pull
hairs from my
face… are you
there in the wound? Is this you
you threatening to
bleed me?
•
In sleep,
I see birth mother
floating
above me, bright
pink and
naked
as a prophecy. She
chokes down
my body until her
mouth
floods with
cells and opposition.
On the night I was conceived,
Mexico
tangled
birth mother’s hair into canals
of blood.
Seven months later,
and I entered grave
and
unpronounced.
How to name
a dying breath
something other than quick,
facile.
How to trace
the blood
back to a mother
I have one
photo of, who
does not know
I am not what
they first called
me.
How many ways
to call me “sir,”
“him,”
“tranny faggot”.
How many
ways to deduce
whether or not
mother’s addiction
inflicted upon me
my penchant for
the dangerous, as in
how many men
do we now share between
us.
How to
to carve birth mother
out like
a stone wedged
into my naval.
How to find
her teeth
nose eyes
in a week’s worth
of Facebook searches.
How to tell her
I am not
her son, that I am
barely
her daughter.
How many ways to
say “daughter”
“hija”
“girl”
“perra”
“mija”
“tranny faggot”.
•
In a dream, I address my
birth mother,
ask her
to guess
how many
faces
I see
in the mirror
each day.
Ask her to
tell me
the number of
siblings that
know
I
am here.
Ask her to
point
me to
the spot
where my birth father
touched her ferocious
and summoned me.
•
The description provided by the Tate and National Galleries website regarding Louis Bourgeois’
“A’L’Infini” series deduces
that the title, “into infinity” is
suggestive
of both
an unmapped
expanse
and a life
cycle.
So then.
At the end
of life, there
are still
borders to
be crossed,
bodies
averse to
location and
thus preserved
by their
unknowability.
Perhaps, this
is most accurately
how I think
of you,
dear siblings:
In portrait. As borders
struck down
by
recognition.
By this, I mean
I know you
best
by the homes
that won’t lay
claim to me
in full.
When I
close my eyes
there is not one
thing that
owns me.
Thus, my branch
among the
oyamel does
not know
of its
address, is
blind to
the other branches
waving beside it.
•
Roots, we are
so many
bodies between
us
both here
and not here.
In Chula Vista,
I climb the hill towards my house each morning.
When I reach the top,
the border plays catch with
my body
and feeds me
to the sky.
I Explain Dysphoria to my Older Sister
Perhaps my biggest error is located in the assumption that I was built to live as
long as you, our mother, our father. I look up for a door to swim through in the
sky and find it—the door—shaped like the weightless center of a guitar. Behind
the door, I play soft mouth music. In the grey space, my tongue gyrates softly
against the ass of my teeth. I spit into the hollow and there is blood, a seed, a
sprouting limb. I have an error of a mouth, a friend remarks. On any given day, I
enter a room and count all the men I can identify—I mean—I count confidence in
waves, through heat, beyond doubt. Lipstick is an occupation—I do mean chore.
If there is a gun in the room, then I am already sucking down the barrel. If there is
no gun in the room, then I have brought one into it. Relief is a door in the sky
with chemtrails. I suck the lines, birth conspiracy—as in, am I woman, am I not?
Perhaps my biggest error is located. Perhaps my biggest error—woman, not. On
any given day, I look up and see nothing. I look up and hear no music. In my
mouth, the barrel gyrates against the ass of my tongue. If there is a gun in the
room, it is you. It is our mother, our father remarks. If there is no gun in the room,
then spit. Then limb confidence. Then sprouting doubt. Then seed heat— music
shaped like a lipstick sky. Already, I birth my weightless relief. The door beyond
is chemtrails. I can identify all soft meaning. I count and play guitar teeth.
Occupation is woman sucking down grey space. I enter men and swim through
the blood chore.
Spencer Williams is a trans poet from Chula Vista, California. She is the author of the chapbook Alien Pink (The Atlas Review Chapbook Series, 2017) and has work forthcoming from or featured in Hobart, Cosmonauts Avenue, Alien Mouth, Potluck, and others.
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