Worm Moon (Storm)
Jesse Rice-Evans
Dream in which your body is whatever you want it to be
Paint yourself
oceanic—the kind of flaunting blue
that gleams as if from orbit ,
or leagues into equatorial water,
undulating.
I know some of this: me, flat
on the sand, finally
in an oxford.
But this is not about me.
Chiffon cools
across your hips,
each swell of your chest,
a tide pulling salt
and quiet.
Are you at home in your clothes? Stealth femme, soft tomboy, chronic switch?
Cram yr flesh into cutoffs, slick of duck shit algae, scrim of gnats.
Cut your hair with kitchen shears, landscape, asteroid belt and stringy teal & platinum
bangs—don’t worry, they’re hairy like us.
If Mars is in retrograde until tomorrow, today is the best time to pick a fight.
Nothing feels as good as popcorn tastes—butter-slick fingers sopping embroidered An-
thropologie hem—picnic femme, slump of tufting crosscut, stone-arch dyke week.
If I had to gender my I-woke-up-like-this look, I would say YES and braid its hair, then
sweep it into the hallway, shop for new glitter wigs on etsy.
If I had to respond to everyone’s comments on my shrinking hips, too-tight jeans, ripped
bike shorts, I wouldn’t.
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Cauldron Anthology