My Trans Body as a Spanish Giboso
Excerpts from YouTube, X (Twitter), and Facebook comments
Your egg hatches.
There are soft hands.
Soft eyes meet yours.
World of song and chirp.
Warm dry nest. Safe.
The soft man smiles.
“Hello,” he says.
“Pretty bird,” he says. Voice soft.
The cage is clean and there are birds.
Wear sunshine.
Sing lemondrop bright.
“Pretty bird,” he says. “Pretty bird.”
Stretch and flutter.
Cage plastered in ribbons and rosettes that agree: pretty bird.
Sit on the soft man’s warm finger.
He strokes your bare chest, your curled feathers.
Be grotesque and twisted.
Be half snake half gargoyle.
Be loved.
Rook Rainsdowne is a poet currently attending Eastern Washington University’s MFA program. They have been published in Protean, Ligeia, and Fifth Wheel, among others. They are a co-founding editor of COOP: chickens of our poetry. You can find more of their work on rookrainsdowne.com.
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