Aubade with Strap-On

                  Not the morning
light      that makes me      whole,

the three of us
                  in your twin bed

Still, at the root of me,
            I feel it
a phantom
      forgetting
            what isn't mine

Still the same girl,            yes,

but for the first time,
      all      my empty gone
fake, escape
      false flesh
feral
      throbless
            tethered

Last night I saw your back      arch,
      your face hidden
            in the long Sunday
                  of your hair
I became something else
      something that understood
how to bare my teeth and like a man
      drive forgiveness from you
            where there is nothing
to forgive
I understood how
            to bend you double,
the aluminum taste
      of control
thick in my lung—      sweet girl,

            what does it mean—

to be me anymore?      I was a single

match flint,      I was the music
      of wolves,
I was the same
            as you

      Now, I watch your breathing
and wonder who else has spent
            a dark morning
holding your hips to their own,

      a robin at the window
but I want you all
            to myself,

hate everything that could make you
      quill, there is a new want
born in me
       and I have forgotten
myself,
      obsessing
            in the mineminemine
of being more man
            than I was before

- Meghann Plunkett (from Muzzle Magazine)

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