red belly / white shelled filled with dirt:
What would you say if I said
I want to be a girl in all the wrong
ways and a boy just the same
29 years to finally meander meaning
“No, that’s my government name.”
A man walks around with a camera, cemetery hand
Do you think he’ll capture me
another tombstone?
water flows toward me these days
a sycamore sheds its skin—we’re all just different
types of snakes / backboneless body
What would you say if I said
I was born wrong and right
hermaphrodite tongue—too much testosterone
intersexing a condition known as myself
What would you say if I said
the holiest I felt was when
his pussy was suction cupped to mine:
two coy fish sucking
each other bone dry from sin
What would you say if I said
my partner’s pussy
is the altar I worship
and spell the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit with my tongue
What would you say then?
Would you say I’ve found God /
saved by sin?
- Meet the Author
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Like their gender, Salem B Holden (they/them) can be found everywhere and nowhere, probably hugging some tree in the woods, talking to spiders and praising them on their beautiful webs, or foraging mushrooms. They have three chapbooks: How to They/them, Life in the Body, and Rebirth and have been published in Babyteeth, The Insurgence, Many Nice Donkeys, and Lions Online. Their poems have been featured in SOS Art Cincinnati’s Pride Celebration and have won the R.M. Miller Fiction award twice for their Young Adult novel.