Category: Uncategorized

One of Leonardo da Vinci’s most prominent muses was also his male lover. da Vinci depicted him
in hundreds of sketches over decades, and incorporated his lover’s features into a few of his most
famous works, such as “Saint John the Baptist” and “The Angel Incarnate.”
– L’Angelo incarnato & Salai, Carlo Pedretti

If to love another person
is to see the face of God, then I would add that
God sunburns easily, blushes like a peeled cherry.
If God is fond of metaphor, then perhaps His eyes
are treacherous as foamless waves that slice into the Vitruvian Sea.
But His brow is gentle with creases, sparkling with moisture like the
shored furl of a hermit shell, an iridescent martyr to its own beauty.
If God holds all of His children in a grip of callus and hooked thumb,
then instead He holds me
in His throat like a column of salt, waiting to dissolve.
If God is reduced to speaking in tongues,
then He knows how tapping His to the back of my crooked teeth
forms the t of tree, tabernacle, turquoise.
Then He knows the twist of my mouth, the
citrus taste of morning stuck to my lips.
If We are traced from the image of God, then this explains
why Your fingers shadow atop of mine
like a strange mirror, like constellations on the ceiling of a church,
shifted slightly by memory.
This explains why when I fall onto my knees before You, I always keep
my eyes held open to the thorned laurel of Your laughing head,
my mouth slack in a wordless prayer.

my ears were delightedly attuned to this sound
as it sprinkled fervently within the depths of my affections
such affections are sparse, such as those diamonds on a blushed chest
but her intimate rarity of a woman is the catalyst to my internal fire
she walks with luxury, each flower blooming in her path
and the intensity of her oceanic eyes is the lure in which i succumb to
it grows in my chest in the common space of our intense desires,
in which her fluttering fingers plant rare diamonds on my skin

The walking house-less root our society
Remind us of our nomadic past
Not home -less,
As we carry our hearth and clan
With us
Along with indispensable pieces of string, bolts, a Playmobil girl thrown from a car window that lands next
to the apple core that disintegrates
Seeds embed in the crack of the pavement
Sensing dirt
And life

So many stories to tell from what we carry in our pockets
Army knife, dental floss, pen.
Essentials on the road.

In Shibuya I take a ride from a trucker
Countless repetitions of Whitney Houston on cassette
He asks me for sex.
Very politely and in English.
Pulls into the lavish truck stop with massage chairs and steam rooms
His arms spread wide awaiting my leap forward into them
“Sex now?” He queries.

From my small catalog of Japanese words
I pull out a few useful strong roadblocks
“No! You are dirty dish water! Dishes! No! Kitanai”
Not even in the respectful form.

The universe protecting me
I was not scared,
Only annoyed and grateful.
“Thanks Universe. Message received.”

Once Marisa and I hitchhiked together,
Me Thelma, to her Louise
Her trench coat harboring large kitchen knives needed for work at the rally

They pick us up
Question aloud if we conceal weapons
And drive us
Head for our cliff.

“I think we need to jump?” I tell K.
This quiet Cadillac
I diagnose with

Narcolepsy
Asleep at the wheel,
We get out at The tree.
The only one taller than us in this desert.

Safe, alone, hot,
We eat the peanut butter sandwich and apple in my pocket
Giving thanks, again
To the safety net
Provided by Trusting.

I sleep under the overpass
Feeling secluded in our tent
Warriors of the road
We do not sleep in motels.

Vagabond, nomad, traveler, pilgrim, walker
Not lost
Only finding joy and surety in the Way.

In West Virginia, after our day’s miles,
We puddle in a pile and read aloud
The Tao of Pooh.
My Christopher Robin narrates to Jen’s Piglet, Marisa’s Eeyore, Lynn’s Owl, and the heart of us, Kieran’s
Pooh.

We are not lost.
We have found
A sisterhood, imaging our retirement in the Home for Aged Dykes.
We, The Bone People.
“Together, all together, we are the instruments of change.

I’ll meet you, I’m free all day
I’ll beg you “stay”
All the words I wish you would let me say
Wish you could believe in another way

Don’t show up to boot camp
Change your last name to mine
Hold your hand like a clamp
And tell you it’s fine

I’ll meet you on your final day
Before you’re locked away
And beg you “stay”
All the words you wished you could say
Wish I could promise another way

I’ll meet you in the sky
Watching my fan spin
Meeting the new guy
Wondering “will i ever love him?”

Absolve yourself clean
of your rose-colored shroud
and see I am merely lamb ripe
for your slaughter,
not your long prayed
after prodigal daughter.
Your deep-seeded lust
for control pools
in the corners of your lips,
spilling from your parable fantasies.
Early morning prayers that I will reject
my true identity and return home
to the fold, cry out Mommy
hold me, and revert
to the ways things were.
But I have taken sharpened cross
to the image of what we were,
crucified pain soaked
memories with my teeth,
and finally come to a place
of loving my life
and even more: loving me.
Why would you ever want
to take that away from me?
The way things were – to wish
that upon me knowing how endlessly
my self-loathing poured,
how many pieces I was shattered
into, how many times I searched
for the scripture of death
– does that really sound like an unconditional
mother to return me to that tomb?
Afraid of the reflection
you will see, you turn your gaze
to me and outstretch your thorn
crowned finger towards me. Blame lacerating
me for the pain, the space, the lonely
tether buried inside you since before
I was born – the swollen scars
across your waist once angel-kissed
skin was carved from womb.
I never asked for this, you thrust
it upon me with your own desire
to mother control over yet another
innocent soul. You sermon a good show
to the masses but I can see your split tongue
through the disillusion of your poisoned
smile as you claim me as apple
stumbled far from the tree.
But I am not more apple than I am fruit
rot from twisted vine,
torment filled weeds asserting
their desire over strong rooted
paternal branches. I will saw
the umbilical bond between us
with my own sharpened rib
to be free of the bone crushing weight
of the way you see me. You
can say the only truth that matters
is your love for me, but what love
can exist when your devotion
forwards a faith draws priority
over your own flesh and blood weeping
before your feet? Hands withdrawn to prayer
as holy child cries out to simply be embraced
by the body she once called home.
The pain pulsing through your wrists
is only a drop in the bucket of tears
from a daughter cutting herself orphan
from a mother she wishes
could see the meat of the meal – no distraction
of sacramental wine or flesh torn
bread – see child raw and ragged.
See blue eyes desperate to show the broken
is not within her to be fixed
but within the mother-daughter tie bleeding
between their chests. Bond tattered
through years of conditional guilt,
unhealed wounds, and gaslit hymnals
sworn through telephone lines. Time
has tipped the scales as I reach the end
of my Samson rope, cutting myself loose
as I free-fall into the promise of a future
unburdened by your prayers
for me. I will not return home
as long as home is not a welcoming
place, safe for me and my family.

Red is the color of her sweater
One hundred percent wool
None of that acrylic stu
I always thought wool was itchy and ugly
But nothing could be ugly on her
Hugging her is now my favorite pastime
Because I crave for it
I crave for that itch of the wool
Against my soft skin
I crave for that quaint aroma of her perfume
But even more than that
I crave for her lips against mine
For her arms around my body
For her forehead pressed to mine
For her hair to entangle my waves
I crave for her
Screw the sweater
I want her

we danced through the neighborhood all night
party hopping from one sequence of four digits to the next
bumping squeezing shifting moving
always moving

tangled within one another

we mustʼve seen a hundred faces that night
but the only one i remember
is yours

our hands
everywhere

your right in mine
my left on your shoulder
my right on your waist
your left my cheek

my hands wrapped around your
face waist shoulders elbows hair

your
everything

youʼre everything

characters out of my dreams

twirling spinning tripping
over one another

just two girls
kissing at a party

just two girls
kissing

just two girls

two girls

us

hands everywhere

Every time I look in the Mirror
I recognize myself less and
less
Who is this person?
Is this a dream?
Is this a Nightmare?
No, this is very much reality
A dysphoric reality
A transgender’s reality
Why was I born a man?
And not a
woman?
Did the doctor make a mistake?
Forever Unanswered
“Life is like a highway,” they say
For me, it was just a
Lane
Not going anywhere
Feeling dead; asleep
dark
I only awoke when I was born again
In shining light, I saw who I was
Illuminated by the sun and moon
A woman
Trapped in a body I don’t recognize
Shoulders too broad
A reminder of where I came from
People like me get killed for this
For
existing
Unsafe to go to the bathroom
To the park
Without the fear of getting hurt
This isn’t what scares me
Not being my true self does
My true, real
self
I can’t walk away from this
I can’t give up
I can’t let the monster in the mirror win
This is me
My life
My identity
My destiny
I am… Elena Vieira Hammer

I just can’t tell you exactly how much
I love looking at your sexy body,
And how badly I want my hands to touch,
And my lips to kiss – I am so naughty,
Wishing to be with you, and hoping you
Would make my wild desires come true.

It was August and the tree in the back was pregnant with fruit.
My dad was never sure when it was planted but you liked to imagine
that it was always here– that someone had built the yard around it.
Your dad was a professor, but in the Summer he came out to California
To write movies in the house across the street. Sometimes
I imagined you with him– on red carpets or on planes. Every once in a while
I could watch the lights in your kitchen turn on when you had dinner. Other
times, I saw the lights turn off when you went to bed.

Every evening, though, you’d come over and we’d lay in the backyard
under the orange tree, sunbathing like the lizards we chased through the yard.
We liked to pretend we were grownups living on our own. I didn’t have a kitchen
to make you meals, so I’d pick an orange for you and peeled it,
handing you each wedge and when you chewed, you’d wrinkle your nose,
but always opened your palm for another.
My nails stung when I pulled back the rind, but it made you smile,
and when juice dribbled from the corner of your mouth, I wanted to lick it off.

As we grew underneath the tree, you’d ask me to braid your hair and let me trail
my hand up your neck and to your widow’s peak, past the sunburns on your shoulders
and the downy hair on your ears. We talked about how it felt to get older–
how we got taller, how we couldn’t quite understand the restlessness we felt at night,
how our legs stuck sweaty to the sheets.

Do you remember the Summer when the fruit the tree bore ran rancid?
When its skin puckered with sores and the juice stained
in the color of old blood. The Summer you traced the freckles on the back of my leg,
because that was the Summer I think I wanted you to.

We were in the back when our dads came over to check on the tree
and your father said the tree was diseased– that it was sick in its roots.
It was only Summer and maybe I swallowed too many orange seeds, but the pit
in my stomach bloomed to my solar plexus when I saw you.

Is that what I was too?
Sick in the roots? The way I might have wanted you.