by Kate Porch
The first time my best friend injects themselves with HRT,
we all conference call on Skype for moral support. They
explain the steps to us as if we’re each doing it together–
salt, shot, lime, on three–displaying the fine point of the needle,
the notches on the syringe, the sharps bin, lifeguard-shorts red, and
we leap into the public pool where we are not girls anymore. Girlhood
dissolves into the wet and we stroke our way through it, our limbs un
spooling. Amorphous, we mould, and remould again into kappas and
kelpies, diaphanous, webbed things, with skin so filmy and sleek we cut
through the waves like dolphins. Sometimes we are running from the
Mer-Hunters, sometimes toward, in the dark, heaving these soft bodies
up over the bows of their ships, onto the pool deck to release our trapped
sisters (no matter what we are, we have always had sisters), and ripping
out the throats of their captors, the blood gurgling and snapping like pop
rocks—–when the life guard’s whistle pricks the night (No running!)—–we
dive back into the sea, still clenching the esophagi, fluttering like ribbons
twixt our teeth. We have also been wild horses herded across a channel,
runaway orphans, kelp farmers with sticky squid feet holding us fast to the
ocean floor, our sweat salting the water—–King Triton demands we harvest
the entire reef for his feast tonight(we are always urgent)–and boys. You
cotton swab your skin, gathering up a fold of belly between your fingers,
and I know the ice cold of the antiseptic. I take breath through my teeth,
I know the sting, the needle in, the needle ejected, my hands shaking with
a kind of awe. I am looking at a god, creating itself. You and I were girls
together once (boys also), and sexless, membranous things floating in the
deep, making and unmaking ourselves. I am most of all in awe of how we
are only the dregs of those kids, and yet we still know how to keep each
other, and how every time we speak, the sound of my name changes in
your mouth: a chirp, a lifeguard’s whistle broken mid-shriek, a crunch
of gravel chips underfoot (today it’s the clonk of an ice cube in a
heavy glass), but I can always recognize these voices
as yours, and come running.
Kate Porch is a poet, kindergarten teacher, and South Floridian. However, she currently works, writes, and dances in Bangkok. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature, and has previously been featured in Ghost City Press, Miniskirt Magazine, and Pulp Poets Press, among others. You can find her other publications listed at kateporch.weebly.com.