My working metaphor

i'd rather something edgy:
fingernails or cleavage
or blossoms on a fig tree

not this.
i don't want this
running through
all my best stories y lies.

i don't want my working metaphor
to be my body
or invisibility
or skin or fat or size

don't want consumption
don't want eating
don't want to swallow
each emotion

don't want food
expansion
bloating
growth

i do not
want
to feed
on this
metaphor

but i
am a poet
& this is
the meal

applicable

it doesn't matter
if you say queer
or gay or femme
or dyke

i am not insecure
about who i love
or what that
makes me

my only anxiety
comes from your
silent assumptions

so sure
that all those words
you'd never use
don't apply

old tx seabed

my children's eyes

are full of fossils

on this ancient ocean floor

their pockets fill with

dust & dirt & rock

and the imaginings

of a vanished sea

nostalgic hijab

i miss the

tug & tuck

wrap, pull, down & around

secure

no pins or clips but

practice, discipline, training

i miss the privacy

like a click of a closed door

the feeling that my body was

my own

& not

a public offering