As a student, I stitched
a cadaver together
while my professor
said you must
be a predator,
must see the body
as parts within
a sack of skin.
I wish I could
see the body
like that now—
how it is
right here in my hand
and also my hand.
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As a student, I stitched
a cadaver together
while my professor
said you must
be a predator,
must see the body
as parts within
a sack of skin.
I wish I could
see the body
like that now—
how it is
right here in my hand
and also my hand.
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Before I left him /
on his deathbed, my father used to say
the ice is breathing: this quivering song
of things once-broken, mending. /
This song of them breaking again.
You can say my mother didn’t know jack
about no line breaks, but she’ll tell you
that one thing leads to another; and violence
and love can happen all at once.
How should LGBT activism think about state power?
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