Dogman/Wolfman/Transman
by Alistair Keay
Western Washington University
Alistair Keay (he/him) is a born-again yapper. And also a senior at Western Washington University.
I.
I left my steadiness in last night’s late
lunch, strained with limbs like lambs’ tails,
nerves fire-working, wracking, wasting,
machine hands in utero drawing me
down this flight of stairs. Cold,
basement corner and high beams of
my brain, stool and lock-down, eye
dazzle, chew on things just to spit
-ball swallow down what cannot work
its way above what’s wrapped around
my throat. Bottom stair stare red-
eye photo reflection, expectation of
want mistaken for soul solely because
it is easier. Oh, by God, it’s easier.
Want what wants to harm me,
because, by God, it’s easier.
II.
The other night dream of a metal vest
man, I’m never me no exception, but a
rotting thing voyeuristic, no different, I grew
the fur they always seem to want
and teeth they never seem to manage,
just another wallet photo rag-tag image;
portable, accessible, plausibly deniable,
interest detachable, inside my throat retractable—
eyes shut first for anything unasked,
just taken. Take it. Flip a coin and beg it,
bite down on what I wish I never had,
machine-gun waking heartbeat be goddamned,
fight or fly from someone else’s bed,
sex-not-wet dream teacup dredge
some meaning from the canines, jaw
wire, evening dread, rub some salt inside
the scab, bone shard blood rich iron mess,
next impression, reach out and ignore that
jagged edge, that baseless porcelain premonition
sopping heap of spent leaf dregs, that
lasting taste of rotting flesh, absolve
what you want. Refuse what I c[am]n.
III.
There is glitter in the blood
on the shower drain, dripping
over my lips from where
it had been warming my tongue,
left stale and coagulated hours
to remind me what it’s
like to be (w)hole, which is to say
it’s really just a ritual
regurgitation purging the peach-pit
replacing my heart, which is to say
I reach to mirrors not to wipe the
red from the corners of my mouth
but to wonder what exactly I am
missing, which is to say I meet my
own eyes unable to read what
may be behind them. I want
to lick the salt from someone else’s
tongue, rest their head on my sternum
and listen to the irregularity scraping
my ribs, ruin the latent require to
keep myself quiet, sit and beg God
for a world unwanting me small—
and I am tired of feeling like less
of a man because the thing in my
brain-cage, the animal unoccupying
my pants—my blood’s on the floor,
to keep fate in my hands.