and yes, i have breasts
but girl remains a language
that i have yet to learn to speak
my tongue fumbles on their
curves and trips over the
precipice into something like
longing
bewildered and clumsy
i am stung with captivation
my stuttering thoughts with their
big green eyes
how does she get her hair like that?
how does she make her eyeliner look just that way?
how does she know?!
because it seems i have to work
for everything that should have been mine
since birth, when they told my mother
“it’s a girl!” as they lay me
cold and wet and alive
on top of her heaving chest
regaling me of womb stories, she says
“i thought for sure you were a boy!”
well, maybe her heart told her
what my body could not
that i am maddeningly between worlds
that the roughness in me cannot be
smoothed by peach cashmere
that i bruise my hips because they are
so foreign to me i forget my own orbit
and that sometimes
between sips of cabernet sauvignon
and flickering inhibitions
i want to kiss my girl friends
on the mouth.
