A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill

[T]he issue of transsexualism has profound political and moral ramifications; transsexualism itself is a deeply
moral question rather than a medical-technical answer. I contend that the problem of transsexualism would
best be served by morally mandating it out of existence.
—Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire

Adrienne Rich has been a very special friend and critic. She has read the manuscript through all of its stages
and provided resources, creative criticism, and constant encouragement.
—Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire

Aunt Adrienne’s Flippers

Adrienne and I
compare our flippers.

Of course, hers are
classics, slick with light

even when dry.
Compared to mine,

they’re a field goal,
a #goals post, a tiger

perfectly embroidered.
She draws back, bobbing,

not wanting to crowd me,
although my plastic toes

reach out so far before me
that’s she’s definitely safe.

And, looking up,
she excavates my face

in search of some mistake,
one I’ve made? One from

some other people, who
booked this cruel interview?

We sit together underwater.
My earpiece says she’s still deciding.

For forty-one years,
I sit across from Adrienne,

watching this slow decision.
There are times when one

or both of us are dead.
What happens between us

has happened for centuries.
I know it from literature.

“No, Adrienne!” I scream. “Not that starboard—your other starboard!” Adrienne dashes in every direction and,
rising, the sea sucks her teeth over our decks. Adrienne is hoisting, tying, tying off, and the rain comes down in
duvets. “My mother weathered a storm like this once, when she was sixteen!” I shout through the squall. “Off the
coast of San Diego, cooking on a divers’ pleasure boat.” The waves push past us like male poets. “I’ve always
admired my mother,” I cry, “the daughter of an Arthur Miller character, who graduated high school early, and
went to work on a boat!” But Adrienne’s retreated below decks. I cup my hand over my salt-screwed eyes, the
gale still lashing my throat through my slicker. There’s the ladder, hanging innocently, and her just pushing off
with both flippers.

"All of a sudden I saw a blue lighter," Maxey said. And then, Sagal was engulfed in flames.

Another witness, Scot Baughman, sprang into action, ripping his shirt off and attempting to put out the fire.

But it "would just not go out," he said.

We are staring each other
up & down, still          & a difference

a very little difference
is prepared                  what happens

between us has happened
for centuries                we know it

from literature            It’s been centuries
 since 1979                  who knows how many

and my neighbor, a feminist
and art collector, telephones me

in a state of violent
emotion.          She tells me that my daughter and hers have published an open letter demanding that a certain
                     feminist professor’s lecture be cancelled. She has forbidden my daughter to come to her house for                   
a week, and has forbidden her own daughter to leave the house during that time. “The silencing of                 
a woman,” she said, “arouses terrible sensations in me, memories of rape, there are few things that               
   upset me so much as the idea of silencing a woman.”

To imagine a time of silence
like when that boy died

they take my name away
because it makes me dream of him
and after that, silence follows me
I learn close reading
memorizing his name

There are nonprofits for all this
and they are useless

There are books that describe this
written on typewriters of ash

dryness of mouth
after speaking continually,

for untold centuries since
1979                           love and fear
in a house                   knowledge
of the oppressor,         how her scored heart

can burn                     If I’m lonely
it is because I pored
over her beloved friend’s
book too long
I dream of her too often
—Am I lonely?

I scrawl my answer on the hull
of a rowboat ice-fast on the shore
“Forty-one years later
nothing had been reckoned with
            Thus were we lonely in the time
of chemistry and music”

they take the book away
                      Maxey was sitting in the park
                        across from the Multnomah County Courthouse
                        on the warm afternoon, and she listened to Sagal.
they give the book back
                        Maxey said she agreed with what Sagal was saying
they take the book away
                        that people have a right to housing
they give the book back
                       that when some people go into police custody
                        they end up being abused and hurt
they take the book away
                      And then, "she got out a gallon bottle
                        and poured what looked like dirty water
                        over her head," Maxey said.
they give the book back
                        "I thought maybe she's really hot."
they ask you to account for it

Cis people almost don’t exist
They cannot be accounted for

I read her book so closely
                        too often
outflung hand              beating bed

dryness of mouth after screaming
there are flames of gasoline  in Lownsdale Square, Portland
did I read or am I reading
in America we have only the present tense

I am composing on the typewriter late at night, thinking of today. How well she spoke. This failure is a map of
our language. Adrienne Rich wrote an English purer than Milton’s. People have a right to housing. Sexual violence
has been found to be even higher in some subpopulations within the transgender community, including
transgender youth, transgender people of color, individuals living with disabilities, homeless individuals, and
those who are involved in the sex trade. There are methods but we do not use them. Chloe Sagal had a machete
when officers arrived, but they defused the situation, according to Sgt. Chris Burley, Portland Police Bureau
spokesman. The silencing of women arouses no sensation in me. I know it hurts to burn. There are flames of
gasoline in Lownsdale Square, Portland. We are already touching, and this language belongs to nobody. 

Notes: This poem borrows text, alludes to, reverses, or quotes Adrienne Rich’s poems “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children,”
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” and “Song.” The title, “A revolutionary poem will not tell you how or when to kill,” is a quotation
from Rich’s book What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. 

Text is also lifted from the following sources:

Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons

An article in the Portland Oregonian by Lizzy Acker, describing the death of queer trans woman artist Chloe Sagal.  Sagal
committed suicide by self-immolation. Source:
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/06/woman_who_set_self_on_fire_in.html

“Responding to Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault,” a report by the Office of Justice Programs,
an agency of the United States Department of Justice. Source:
https://ovc.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh226/files/pubs/forge/sexual_numbers.html

Poem for Jack on his birthday

Such awe at the breadth of the heart, Jack, to see your face again without your forearms, because when you are
drunk and so happy, you squeeze my forearms in winter, when we are talking at the corner although it is too cold
to stop. We’ve been talking so long that we meander hoarsely, but we are so happy, the difference between us
enchants us and I would take my head off, I would set it down on the stones of Dodge Street and leave it with
yours like a poet, and I wouldn’t be ashamed.