Sometimes what’s strapped down tight—
breasts, cock—needs restraint,
and restraint a kind of freedom. Can you
understand what I mean? Buttoned,
flattened, tucked parts become wings,
exotic creatures disguised against the world.
In camouflage, we pass unseen except
by the trained eye that perceives our infrared,
glowing eyes like moths whose backs
mimic faces. We deceive,
create spaces we crave.
Don’t Confuse Restraint
Subhaga Crystal Bacon (they/them), is the author of five collections of poetry including A Brief History of My Sex Life, from Lily Poetry Review Books; the Lambda Literary finalist, Transitory, 2023, winner of the BOA Editions, Ltd. Isabella Gardner Award for Poetry; Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, winner of the Red Flag Poetry Chapbook Prize, 2023, released in an expanded second edition in the summer of 2024. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, Subhaga is an AWP Writer to Writer mentor and teaching artist working in schools and libraries with youth and adults, as well as private students. Their work appears or is forthcoming in a variety of print and online journals including Terrain, The Diode Poetry Journal, The Bellevue Literary Review, Indianapolis Review, Smartish Pace, and others. A Queer elder, they live in rural northcentral Washington on unceded Methow land.