Invasive

When I opened my cyclops, I remembered the sun.
Another mouth forms the phrase “wrong body”
and I correct them and say you mean “wrong context.”

I am thankful to not be male. Instead, I am a blade of butter.
A shoe’s worth of land. They measure their worth 
in acres. Invent tools to peer out at the hills

and break them into parcels. As a game, I decide 
to travel as far as I can in this life. Could I arrive 
where I’m told I belong? Would I even want to.

Something I love about my exile is the color of stoplights.
How their red challenges mine like a game. 
When it returns like a gifted and un-gifted ring.

I too am like that pattern. Unwanted and admittedly 
beautiful. Moths tattoos themselves on the street lamps.
A remnant is towed away. This is my blue September city. 
 

Credit

From Lanternfly August (Driftwood Press, 2023) by Robin Gow. Copyright © 2023 by Robin Gow. Used with the permission of the author.