Blue Ridge Androgyny
If you can the preserves, I’ll break the logs for
winter. Until then, your warm knuckles will need
to button the vest of my three piece suit—
nevermind that we buried my father in the jacket
and the trousers. Nevermind my breasts flattened
under your suspenders.
Nevermind we could flatfoot to the thrum of my heart.
I don’t have to remind my body: now,
my hand leads your waist instead.
Could you, would you, stitch your name into my collar?
That is to say, all this room in the crotch of
your pants I’m wearing even though my heart spills over.
That is to say, my milk for the baby even though you’re
the one who sings him.
Can you see the raccoon watching us from the
pine branch? She must have seen us digging
through each others’ bodies as she through
the pig trough, every night.
I’d like to tell her, our digging isn’t really search.
We know what we find here, what we don’t.
You, the sun in my mouth, and I, the eclipse
in your throat.
-Kristi Carter
“Blue Ridge Androgyny” is from the Sundress multi-genre anthology Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place. Order your copy here!
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