KU Barrett
Issue No. 22 • Spring 2021
Sick 4 Sick
Her body patched, swollen skin,
hair flecks gone rogue, mismatch
knees, ache knits quilt through out.
Curvature, a soft thing.
She said
if we hum close,
close enough that our chests touch,
shared breath comes from belly up,
—that, that is not platonic.
Now breathe same air, nostril kinetic
by way of brow cleft in migraine.
Syllables chop temples. Strain is
something to lull here, together.
When nerves are ablaze, I’m told
to be blanket. Lay my torso on hers,
abdomen to abdomen, core to core,
is this what a field does to a hill,
spill it with poppies? I wait on
her skill. How she will sigh.
The human body is heating pad.
Limbs bonfire, flip sheets, you can’t
reverse sick. Chests pulse softest lake.
Come spring we never do this again.
There’s only memory of it,
how her lungs cathedral. How I prayed
there, on the ledge of inhale,
sternum sacred, coughed hymn, spasm
luminescence.
Syllables stretched, muscled
sacrament more than splay,
us petals in overlap
an ampersand
on fire.
Nocturne for Hysterectomy
how you paused when the nurse said your name, not
your real name, but the one lodged onto your government ID.
where you correct her, slurred and fevered, claim your pain level
is a seven, and she tells you you’ll slide into the white cove for
a CT scan. the drip in your veins allot enough energy not to wince.
you hold your breath. they record your pelvis, tell you that everything
will be hot, your toes spark star fire. don’t worry it’s temporary
is a saying you have heard & squint at. are you peeing on yourself?
did the nurse use the wrong pronouns again? you laugh at this new
privilege – how your white nurse will have to pick up after brown piss.
how the rust you make is homegrown, how you can’t tell who
is the butcher anymore. your own uterus after all asked to be bent,
did you sling the slaughter? you imagine warmth, the fish roasted by your
mother’s hands, how seafood is the joke metaphor between our legs.
after the scalpel, what will you smell like now? never mind this pandemic
how your partner is informed she cannot go any further, she cannot sit
with you in re-wiring, your dizziness lacquered by less organs.
Two weeks before: emergent. The report dictated, the field of
your abdomen appeared a rorschach of cells, both my parents died
of cancer. You confess this inheritance of blooms. ovaries can stay,
the surgeon repeated. To not cry at the cephalopod shaped clots,
shells of who you once were. To peel back sheets as they contort
colors you didn’t know you had in you. To not have the face
of anyone on the pamphlets. To know you are again, your own manual.
What’s said to me: Gender is a found essay
1.
I am booked for a talk in the Midwest. The person assigned to pick me up, looks over me after I say Yes, yes I think you’re here for me. When they look at my chest, a hot pink banged queer smacks their gum, as they heave my luggage into their four door laced with cigarette butts, But I thought you were transgender? I am and there is no one kind of transgender.
2.
Sizing up my double Ds, sizing up my lack of scruff, all the white bois whose parents are paying for $10,000 top surgeries out-of-pocket without blinking, the way they also get new cars, the way going to university for them was but a check mark on a list of everyday to-dos. So... you are trans? I am.
3.
But did you always know you were a man? Did you just want a penis? Is it because you had brothers? Is it because you never had a father in your life? Yes and No. All of the above. Maybe not at all? Can you just turn left at the light. I can get out right here, thanks.
4.
In a country that doesn’t really see me, my doctor’s stethoscope prods: What happened to your chest? Did you have cancer? That must’ve hurt. I don’t say, it hurt to look in the mirror. I don’t say the words ‘gender affirmation surgery,’ how I sliced myself across my heart with delight on purpose. He also asks me to inhale and exhale. Both of which seem harder by the minute.
5.
A different doctor who signs off on my medicine tells me he’s been to the Philippines so many times, for fun. Says, I’m navy, you know? Maganda! The doctor mouths as my shirt flails from my shoulder. Hey, pretty girl! Was one of the first things I learned to say in your language. I mean... you’re still kind of a girl, right?
6.
On a panel, a noted writer features with me and we talk about gender politics way too long. You don’t have facial hair? My wife’s nephew has facial hair! He looks like a real guy, you know? You would never know he was born with a —
7.
My partner is a flight attendant and after de-briefing her crew I was on board, that the name on the passenger log isn’t actually my real name, after saying my pronouns are he/they, the older flight attendant who served me my cheese plate without any eye contact bombastically announces from the galley Our pilot! Now that’s a real man! THAT’S AN ACTUAL MAN.
KAY ULANDAY BARRETT aka @Brownroundboi is a poet, performer, and cultural strategist. Their recent book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Their contributions are found in The New York Times,