In Which We Stop Comparing Top Surgery to Metamorphosis By Jackson D. Moorman

The Rising Phoenix Review

June 4

In Which We Stop Comparing Top Surgery to Metamorphosis

because no one passes laws to keep caterpillars
from becoming butterflies. No one murders

butterflies because they were once
cocooned. I need new metaphors. I need

language peeled to the bone, so collar close
it vibrates. Closer to the petition:

carve me into myself. Whole
family on the phone as warning:

you can't take it back,
we love you - but not

this. Half the country praying
anesthesia twilights me gone.

How long I spent pushing
against myself. The buzzcuts,

the binders, the litany of men
I'd rather be. This is no soft

cocoon. No sugar water, no time
to dry off in sunlight. Call it bloody

baton turned Stonewall on the cops,
stitches of sapling to mend forest

sliced by fire. Hirschfeld's words
reassembled from library

of ash. Lover unfurling shirt
from bandaged body. To come home

to yourself, sometimes you have to do battle.
Not everyone makes it. It's a privilege

to wake up happy and sore. You were smiling
in your sleep, C. said. I told her,

in my dream, everyone came back
and we gave them their roses.

Click here to listen to an audio clip.

By Jackson D. Moorman

Biography:

Jackson D. Moorman (he/him) is a queer and trans poet, organizer, and nurse who lives in Oakland with his wife and their two tiny rescue mutts. He is co-editor-in-chief of the poetry journal Frozen Sea and co-organizer of a poetry series for Palestine entitled In Water & Light. You can find him on Instagram and Twitter @jacksondmoorman.