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 […]
Subhaga Crystal Bacon
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.
IYKYK
for the young trans man in seat 18F More than your pink hello kitty t-shirt, scissor-cropped at sleeve and midriff. More than your soft chest and the curves of your back, the flesh under your arms, the way it folds, like mine over even the softest bra. More than your […]
Alaska Air, Boston to Seattle
We’re in the pre-boarding group, the first of those who need extra time— no questions—when a tenor voice behind me asks if there’s room in the closet to stow their guitar. The blue-suited attendant says no, but thank you for asking. I can’t imagine it fitting in the overhead, bin, premium space that it is. […]
Wild Botanica 1460
For Jenn Martelli I wish you could see these new Docs— buttery tan nubuck harness boots— Cute! you’d proclaim them, burnished on top of the steel toe. I tried to buy the Wild Botanicas you yearned for in your poem of the same name, got scammed on a pair at […]