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Four poems by mason bolton
Trans-man Blues
I. At night
when I wake in this body.
Flat where once there were breasts,
hippish that was once hipfull.
There have been two lives to this body
and two lives for each of those lives.
Would you approve?
My friend long gone, would you
have welcomed this new me
into your heart? Into your life?
“Being gay is fine,” you would
have said, “but…” and then
I wonder if some small part of you
would have been incensed
at my joining the sex
that had wholly disappointed you.
II. I was born a girl.
No, maybe that’s not right—
how can one be born one thing
to become another—
I am no caterpillar, no chrysalis, no butterfly.