The Only Atlas We Need Is One Drafted by Children
I know, because a woman told me,
even a horse’s shoe against stone
can spark a fire that wilds too far.
All humans have forged in the embers
combusts, eventually. The copper busts
of men who believed only in genocide,
are common as clouds. The barrels
of 357s were born red hot, before
they tucked themselves into angry
mens’ waistbands. Yes, I only write
about my body because nobody
wants me to have one. This is not
a lonely life. This is the truth of all
people I have kissed, under the shade
of weeping willows. In Pennsylvania,
we are known to gamble our money
as much as our lives: scratch-offs,
Powerball, lifting rocks to wrestle
both king and coral snakes. Red
touching black, safe for Jack. Red touching
yellow, kill a fellow. Children in a forest
depend on verse, limerick, the iambs
of wind throbbing through birch trees.
Across the country, my desert family
drinks exclusively Pacifico, and grafts
the wounds of cacti—two species eager
to grow as one. This is all to say, most
people understand more about transness
than they let on. My small town let me
play baseball with the boys, let me
dodge the goose shit littering right field,
and let me lead off. All transgression
of gender permissible, if I batted over
.300, listened to 3 Doors Down, Creed,
and supported the war. What comes first,
the hatred, or the curriculum to teach it?
I memorized four centuries of papal
reign before the periodic table. I knew
atomic warfare before the atoms bumping
together to build it. I learned I was alive
before I learned how I became so—
parents all atomic and chaffing. Some
things are inevitable, like rain in April,
a teenager’s newfound lust, and disease
dancing through a child’s poorly tended
ant farm. Somewhere, a child is playing
cartographer in the woods—making
maps of worm writing. Somewhere,