Before I was born, I was conceived. Some used to say that girl sperm had short tails, and thick skin, so they got there slowly, and could hang around as the golden majesty of the egg moved down out of the blister-door of the ovary. But now we know one sex does not obviate the others. Everywhere inside my body my maleness casts shadows, and shines light. My mother did not erase me, and my father taught me giggling by tickling me, dishonoring my barriers. And yet from birth I have had a rock for a soul—Sierra Nevada granite. And yet I am fasting again, as if I crave the body of a telephone pole with a circuit box up top, a halter for the breasts, and a boom box for the bottom. My soles are numb. I think of our student Wiley in the air over the river, not flying. When I'm reading mysteries, I'm making maps of cloverleafs and compass points. Not every spy novel has an insect in it. I had a mass of insects inside me once, after a wilderness trip, giardia writhing visible on the mass in the laboratory pan. Every day I fall into the trap of melodrama. And I am vain of my relatively unmarked forehead. My cursing has been done internally, I have ripped some muscles with it, I am strong and torn. I am by habit hidden, because I lack genuine trust. Instead, I have humor and dance—hipshake, milkshake.Before they were corpses, trees were our living relatives. When we saw volcanoes in science, I finally saw hell. It was where you would go if you did not lie about your thoughts and feelings.
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