1 poem
by Liam Strong
Liam Strong is a transgender-non-binary writer studying English at University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the former editor of NMC Magazine. You can find their work in Impossible Archetype, Painted Cave, Dunes Review, Clementine Unbound, Monday Night, IDK Magazine, and The 3288 Review.
trans boys turn orange in the limelight
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in the heart of traverse city —which is a crosswalk—
a dog leaned away from its owner sniffed my crotch
looked me up &
down
didn’t stick out his tongue or wagged his tail to the rhythm of people
i jaywalked across the street and waited for the light to turn again
i think the golden apples of streetlamps bear
cold witness to illegal acts of misrepresentation man shits behind the exchange boutique
man says he had nowhere else to go
man catcalls trans student across Front Street
trans student changed their gait, swapped coats
trans student transpired into a ghost again
i think the snow encrusts a road into a flush sidewalk where trans people are only visible
when you give them light to silhouette a body but
the body is null;
the body is null;
the body is null;
the body is null;
i think i am from a small country surrounded by swathe i think i am from a place where
genitalia lilts from vines i think i am from
a culvert where the slop of my body finagled with the jeans of my parents
i think i am a very small place the light from here is fading from whatever was
not i think we are small but no light crawls in