Unsignified
       

I.
There's part of me that isn't a girl

When she stamps and rages
red lights shoot along the ground

Unafraid of the moss-hung woods

She goes there
when the world wants to erase her

Or to the ocean floor

Shape-shifter                Tentacled
Writhing and lighting up

Tetras float around her
She sends up a wave of sound

II.
Once I had a friend

We dreamed in two genders        and when we woke

We spoke of invisible things

III.
Sometimes your love constructs like a foreign language
from a country
            where everyone knows who they are
I visit                You push my hair
into the style of the women            and pull me toward
        their sound

There's part of me
this country never touches

IV.
Once you came to explore the undersea

We'd tossed for days in a ship near your shore

I took your hand and plunged—

        Your eyes to mine through the blue

You took
a delicate tentacle into your mouth

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Copyright © 2020 Megan Alpert All rights reserved
from The Cincinnati Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission