Illuminated, Ava Fojtik

Popped off my knees like bottle caps & became a boy

Daddy crushed Diet Coke cans & I became a boy

 

hands goldfished in the creek—colorful pebble feet

Don’t feed her too much or she’ll grow into a boy

 

Flag pulled down from its perch—waved laughing upside down

The monkey bars at the park know she will be a boy

 

Reflected in rain-windows—chest wrapped in white gauze—

I scissor cut mountains—pressed my lips to a boy

 

Catch tadpoles & swallow them wriggling & whole—

Amphibian mother—gills are a silly thing for a boy

 

The first man was sliced down the middle— half & half

So you’re wondering which half of you is a boy?

 

I wrote my name first in the fogged window, a boy

a soul planted in pumpkin seeds, harvest the boy