Certain experiences—childbirth, death, distribution of consciousness—create epistemic horizons. Reports from the lands beyond are either absent or, in their presence, remain unknowable.
— Inez Sayers Switz

I

You remember the geyser
of your moonlit blood, the hatchet’s wet thud,
hemp rope cutting against your skin,
then nothing. Almost
nothing.
The bog presses down like a lover,
& in time you believe this one
will not betray you, that you’ll rest
endless in earth’s belly,
past pain, regret, long after the ones
who sought to damn you
die, decay, depart. You persist,
or else it’s some scrap, the idea
of you.
Until noise intrudes, rumble
& crunch, scents of tar & life,
bodies not meant for eternity.
They’ve not found you
yet.
You wake.
Remember.

II

This surgery will end your fertility,
they tell me for the tenth time,
as though there’s some ambiguity,
as though I might believe that, when they cut away my testicles,
reform my genitals, I’d somehow produce semen
or carry a life within me. Is it lawsuits
they fear, or the event horizon, beyond which—
Here their imagination fails. Here yours alights,
dry leaves catching a spark.

So many helpful experts, records overflowing
with informed consent. Never mind vaginoplasty
causes less regret than knee surgery,
that my body is a map of absent curves & ever-
present reminders, the haunted terrain of self,
never mind that medical care
is an endurance race
when you’re trans, an ultramarathon
whose prize is some measure of autonomy
over our bodies. Never mind
the bollocks. I spare them this bad joke.

Yes, yes, yes, I say, instead, & smile,
though these are kind people,
but even now, prepped & begowned,
my crotch shaved,
hateful stubble on my chin,
I fear some ambush,
some plot sprung, cruelly,
at the last.

Count down from one hundred,
they tell me. I clench my eyes
against surgical lights, remember
only as far as 97.

III

A cold wind slices at the bog,
but you barely notice, your skin leathered
over bone & sinew.
The moon’s an old friend. Clawing free of the peat,
you leave behind fingernails,
most of one foot. Your clothes dissolved
long ago, but what is modesty
to the dead? Whose gaze will skewer,
fetishize, demand? Monster, they will cry,
revenant, disfigured. A sound like flint scraping
startles you: your own laugh.
They are wrong, their language inadequate
for what you are. Transformed? Closer.
No matter. You’ll find the right word
or invent one.

You think of the wolves’ strange
familiar language, but they are silent. You feel in the hollow
of your chest that they are long gone. Night air
fills your lungs. Perhaps their ghosts
will hear you howl.

IV

Sometimes it still surprises me to be hated
by those who have never met me,
the death threats, provocations
to self-harm. I find grim amusement
in some of it: Future scientists will know
you’re a man from your bones. As if
we are only skeletons, defined by hips
& finger length. I harbor a fantasy:
after I die, carve ritual marks into my flesh,
bury me in a bog. Let my body
be a puzzle they’ll never solve. As it is for me.

The ones who hate me
fear my imagined penis, & if they learn it was split,
reformed, they’ll call it an open wound
because gash would give away the game.

A colleague learns I was harassed, threatened
for refusing to pretend at being a man,
says welcome to womanhood
as if we’re defined
by our degradations. Yet I take affirmation
where I find it. Sister, they hate me
like they hate you.

V

They say the first woman chose exile
over the role they carved for her. You
always liked that. Even now, in this world
of metal beasts & men who cherish
hate, there are places wild
enough: hills, bogs, despoiled fields.
You will not last. Nothing does. The ache
of lungs relearning breath, the sloughing of skin,
these costs of return, you bear them now
as you did in that ancient life. No display piece,
you, no revelation or scientific marvel. They murdered you
in fear & desire. But you were never
what they called you. Treasure what you learned
before the earth bore you, dear one,
those secrets saved for those
who shaped themselves
into themselves.

VI

To the one who is reading this:
know your motives, whether voyeur, bigot,
or sibling in change. This much I’ve shared
& no more. No one can tell you
what awaits. There’s no safety
on the other side
& only one promise:
beloved, you will become.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Jennessa Hester during our annual Kickstarter.]