Volume 7, issue 1 (Winter 2004), Masque Magazine.

Intersection

The way to give birth is
with a ruler. 1.0 cm: F.
2.0 cm: M. And sometimes,
then, a pen. And a knife.
A father signs away
8,000 nerves because
no one he knows has ever
given birth to a child.
But a daughter — he can
handle that; knows now
to call his flesh
Alexis. When a five-
year-old with such a name
insists on wearing pants
to church, the congregation
blames the mother for
dressing her infant in blue.
In a few years, her crew cut
will be so short, they'll
call her 'sir' instead of
'dyke.' And someday,
because Bobbie, who
is XY, but has been
on hormones since before
the top and, later,
the bottom surgery,
will change her driver's
license but not her
social security card
from M to F, but
for all the wrong reasons
will still be allowed
to marry Sam from
San Antonio, who
never started T nor
learned to drive
but who packs a dildo
wrapped in a tube sock
every morning, one year
Julia, whose gonads
do not match her phenotype,
will have to file
her taxes separately
from her husband Diego,
who for nine months is
her same-sex partner.
Sam and Alex meet
each other's reflections
at a windswept rest-stop,
where Alex has to double-check
whether he's crossed the state line
before determining which
restroom to use, and
where Sam doesn't bother
to keep track but simply
classifies himself as one
who pees standing up.
Alex thinks, tube socks are sexy,
and Bobbie has offered
her friend Julia the use
of her husband's womb —
on the condition that
no rulers will be involved —
that is, after Julia and Diego
have moved fifty miles north
to where their marriage
is legal, but before
anyone realizes
Diego has Klinefelter's.
Now both Julia and Diego
are pounding on the walls
of the M and F boxes,
their empty echoes falling on
an adoption agency secretary
who still has but has never used
8,000 of her nerves.
Because one wall is medical,
the second is legal,
the third is linguistic — and
if Sam hadn't run into Alex
he might not have recalled —
the fourth is self-imposed.
Because beneath Alex's sleeves,
doctors aren't the only ones
with knives. So Sam says,
'Nice gender,' like
it's a belt or an eye color,
and Alex replies 'You, too,'
just as Diego draws in
on the next application
an imperfect polygon
next to which Julia scrawls
'Other / Neither / All of the above.'