Robin Gow
This is how I grow
with dirt up to my ankles
and a swing hung
from the banana tree.
Along the ground
there grow white flowers
that open like pocketbooks.
The reflection of my face
inside a fingernail.
Digging in my own bed.
Flowers whose roots
I stole. Teetering on the edge
between daughter and son
and mother and sales man and
weed and blossom.
Crystal ashtrays of pollen.
My grandmother said,
“If I could have been
a man.” I find my manhood
where the brambles
and buttercups tangle.
A glass case full of
pressed petals. O how I walked
all through the night looking
for a place to bury you.
Robin Gow is a trans poet and young adult author from rural Pennsylvania. They are the author of several poetry books, an essay collection, and a YA novel in verse, A Million Quiet Revolutions (FSG Books for Young Readers, 2022). Gow’s poetry has recently been published in POETRY, Southampton Review, Poet Lore, and Yemassee.