i

dive into a poem naked
to find clothes too loose
to fit;
             a dead grandfather’s batik
             shirt buttoned down a
             sun burnt chest
                                                 your flesh fresh from
                                     the beating of a
                         drunken dog
                                                                         plaid shorts hugging
                                                             your waist the way
                                                 you want

                         suck in your ass tight
             and sway to a rhythm,
you click
             your heels – One! Two!

Sometimes a poem is you
dancing alone in your bedroom –

             This poem is you in front of the bathroom mirror
                                                             with your mother’s tweezer
                                                                         plucking all the queer out

 

ii

we are trying to find our way back
to Poetry.
unpack those boxes,
unfold the pages that
broke our
             Bodies. we are trying to mend
             ourselves from textbooks whose
words taking arms
with pitchforks and butcher knives
             sliced our
             poetry

Into stone.∎

Words by Mukahang Limbu. Art by Chloe Dootson-Graube.