*
after Jeffrey Eugenides
How jealous I was finding your beautiful
morning cock beside me, sister, twin, at fifteen,
carrying your gorgeous difference hidden
beneath girlie skirts all the time, and I the
last to know, no, no, you said, it grew when
my blood and breasts came, no one knows
my secret shame, except Rose Garden Grandma,
who told me in her kitchen at age five, rolling
our sour apple pie dough, I know, I know you,
you’re paeve, and I didn’t know what she meant
until age thirteen, and I feeling only left out
and desirous, O, of the urgent heaviness of
your new maleness and unafraid, though it
frustrated and alarmed you, turned my hungry
woman’s body over to cover you, and you
welcomed it, O, that was sweet love we made
that morning, dear twin, you pouring your
urgent flesh into me and my thirsty belly
drinking, drinking, until I knew how to grow
my own, and now walking along the sidewalks
in the electric city I swagger a little, feeling
this sweet naked treasure, do you still have
it too, this masculine softness, this heaviness,
hidden in our jeans
