metamorphosis  

A fish drowns easily in air—the body a syntax of flap.
i am nothing if not earnest, earthy, a woman spreading ash
over prayed upon stone, sleeves of carnations to mentor
their tears. i have huddled in walkups quarantined with fear,
unwilling to love myself careless enough, reckless with joy
over spite for the world. Yet here is my softness outstretched,
my sourness borne through reams of abrasion, corridors 
of unkempt rooms in this doll strewn flop of mind,
the sweet metallic tinge of all the body’s de-postured
openings—its hungry loops & formal arches 
trembling spasms of yes.  

i pluck petal after petal of love-me-not’s to toss
like blessed nickels in bathy pools, hex old orders
de-domesticate & shrivel, my auguries divined in coffee
thick with sex, yeast, late fall dahlias & everyone
born beneath chosen signs, clayed plural in mucus-
lined ancestral gut. Minus speech i measure gender in stretch
marks—hips wringed with wrinkles clocking nights drugged
amphetamine, splotchy concealer & filaments of zest,
my moody teeth & belly etched in razor scar & cherry
ember begging mischief & good fucks. 

i grow verdant with run-ons & tiny breasts jutting 
north like haunted mountains. Sometimes i’m woman, 
all gibbous, pearl & jazz, languidly unfixed beneath muslin
skies, gathering secrets in mouthy eaves. To others
i’m always fish, so upended i hardly manage flapping—
body of peel, of missed connections thirsty for seconds.
The prick of desire fingers my ridges, flip flops atop
a belly gurgling Delphic till the drip spills out  
like sloppy erection.  

i wonder a dreamland of estrogens, turn from one 
sort of birth toward other possibilities, bruised 
& sparkling like a vein of stars. See flesh stripped 
of grammar, ontologies of faggots in borrowed gowns 
spun glitter with vibing smoke. i am a person 
full of doubt & mirth, my heart tonguing envelopes c/o 
you, You, & YOU, a wardrobe of further interiors, vermillion 
with angst, verse, smut, sex remixed & sprigging 
tendrils over toppled walls. Nothing about the body is short 
of miraculous—think cream cradled hollows or sleeping 
skin to skin. Think lemon trees in bloom with fruit or the line
in a poem where certainty breaks.

imogen xtian smith is a poet & curator. Their debut collection, STEMMY THINGS, is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in 2022. imogen lives in Lenapehoking/ Brooklyn.