Three Poems
Billie Sainwood
Lexicon
As my body changes
I find a dictionary sewn crudely under my skin
just below my ribcage.
I curl back the flesh,
let molten yellow fat
split and run like magma
from the volcanic vent of this new
steel-slit cunt
in my side.
I find new meanings
and new words
and practice in the mirror
while I pick at my new wound,
winding my clumsy tongue around the vowels
and biting down on the consonants
until I taste copper.
Love becomes flensing.
beauty becomes écorché.
a kiss becomes wound.
courage becomes hormone.
courtship becomes impact play.
The precarious shiver of skin
and muscle and confidence
the thrumming pupae of new gender
beneath my hollow throat
is called woman.
“Would you like to put needles through my skin for your birthday?”
The silver beneath her skin
forms perfect lines, neat as church pews.
Pain brings us together.
We planned for weeks,
careful as monks with manuscripts. We tended
the silver beneath her skin.
As trans women in love, we know needles,
blood tests, discomfort. All the ways
pain brings us together
with gloves, with wipes, with patience and love.
I teach her shy body to accept the metal, to shine bright.
The silver beneath her skin
for once, is kink. It is a choice. Not medical, but no less
healing.
We ritual and worship. She hurts. I hurt and hiss in unison.
Pain brings us together.
I look in her eyes as the needles whisper into her.
She looks back and her smile is precious as
the silver beneath her skin.
Pain brings us together.
Breasts at three months into HRT, running down stairs
The knees are slow bolts of pink lightning,
still boomerangs of creaking support,
the body is bent, doubled over,
the face is a passionate agony mask
frozen in flushed stone.
To answer the door
that startled the body out of bed:
the running down the stairs
and then the hurt,
unfurling with broad wings
like a Visitation with good news
Be Not Afraid
of this new bounce that comes
with new ache.
The hormones are working.
The breasts are there.
They are alive.
Like St. Teresa of Avila
This is a kiss from a sword
From an angel of fire
A suffering in Bernini marble
A hurt in golden ecstasy
A visiting angel of fire in the chest
A gift as a reward for faith in the body.
With enough belief and daily prayer,
there will always be miracles
and new ways
to hurt.
Billie Sainwood is a queer, trans poet and writer from Atlanta. Her work has been featured in the The Passionfruit Review, Don't Submit Magazine, and en*gendered magazine. Her first poetry collection, WHAT WAS EATEN WAS GIVEN is available now from Kith Books. She keeps a diary of her inspirations and neuroses online at https://billiewritespoems.com/.