FANZINE

American Apparel

 

It can be true that a dick is beautiful

and that I never really wanted a dick.

I don’t want to be one of those folks for whom

being in a relationship means missing

a phone call causes more anxiety than the 127-bed

private prison being built in Eloy to hold onto

any brown person who may or may not have hopped

a white picket fence. Here, our peep-holes are hive-

made. Everywhere I go, I come on my hands. I carry

my boxes with me. Even still. This pond is a fuckfest.

42 dragonflies and when they get after each other

they become the machine we always wanted to be.

The idea was freedom. A little facial hair, a little more

money. Who isn’t worthy? Reach. Or, don’t reach.

 

 

 
Hanging is a misnomer

for Colie Hoffman

 

I

don’t miss

dicks

like like like

like like

like like

even clouds

are pointed

privilege

at ground-

level the sun

is the epitome

of going up

we

have every

right to be

scared the

body

isn’t

personal

breasts

poking out

winning/not

winning

when

I was young

I was

an opening

pics

keep not

sending

the grass is

tall enough

to be

tangled

name

a species

that isn’t

rapey

I’ve got to

give it

to her

it’s hard

to die

quietly

standing up

 

 

 

Before place

 

When a grown man would put a finger inside the asshole

of a hungry little girl. A diagram may be needed. When

could be a noun or a pronoun but in this case, a conjunction

or an adverb. What is inside. We say words are deictic when

they point away from themselves. This is context-

dependent. Who isn’t a preposition. Underneath, behind,

around – this is what we were taught in third grade. When

we woke up to wetness. Proximity or relationship to a cloud –

 

 

 

Chrysanthemum

 

Where I’m from, every white person I know owns

a gun. The molded metal cage of that air-

conditioner on the front porch isn’t something

to be ashamed of. Little girls’ legs are

spread – you have to. It’s for your own good.

A bite from a deer tick can be deadly. It rains

a lot here. Water just stands on the road.

 

——————–

_{TC Tolbert often identifies as a trans and genderqueer feminist, collaborator, dancer, and poet but really s/he’s just a human in love with humans doing human things. Gloria Anzaldúa said, Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks. John Cage said, it’s lighter than you think. www.tctolbert.com}

_{Fanzine’s Fall poetry editor is Julia Cohen. Her most recent book is a hybrid collection of lyric essays, I Was Not Born (Noemi Press, 2014). Her other books are Collateral Light (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2014) and Triggermoon Triggermoon (Black Lawrence Press, 2011). Her work appears in journals like DIAGRAM, Colorado Review, Entropy, The Destroyer, and Kenyon Review Online. She’s currently translating with Jens Bjering the Danish poet Theis Ørntoft. She lives in Chicago and is looking for snow pants.}