us  girls   amidst  girls   wield  the   weaving  material   scattered  kaleidoscopic.  This
                                     recognition  beyond   sight,  the  apparatus  of  vision pressed up
                                     against glass. Gender discontinuum, flesh of collected invention
                                     obliged to my own social contract.

                                     Tooth against tooth, braced into breaking.  This one dream I do
                                     not  write  down,  its  viscera  remains.  It  arrives  again  no  less
                                     familiar;  toolless  defanging,  making  room   in  the  mouth  for
                                     gumming.   Twin   mirror   averse  syncing   into  study  spins  of
                                     Juturna.     The     bloodied    canines     in    my    palm    do   not
                                     render   me  powerless:   now   there’s  a   new   way   to   whistle.

Copyright © 2023 by S*an D. Henry-Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 12, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.