Back when you were a boy, you were
Matt. Now? You say: Call me Matt(ie),
or Matt—which is to say, paint your nails
scarlet as much as you desire, though she
who carries Adam’s apple presents Original
Sin to the world. Translation: there’s a serpent
in your garden, & yes, that’s euphemism
(& yes, that’s pronounced: you+femme+ism).
Now, pin the bachelorette’s testicles to a truck’s
fender, or some other hypocoristic version.
It doesn’t matter, i.e. a diminutive suffix
tacked to a man’s name is still a man’s name.
You peek into a mirror, Mattie smiles back,
but at no angle does she appear in selfies.
Another universe blooms on the other side
of the glass: from there, male eyes castigate
you, Ms. Unperson dancing in a yellow dress
to Gaga. Down and on they settled: you are not
woman—your make-up sucks. You hang your head
in shame; no—you hang the rest of your body
with it. You are the puppetification of a real girl,
whose strings resemble dark, coarse body hair—no,
those fetters are hairs. You ask for a do-over,
a restart. Pretend this did not happen, yes? You
promise you will get the poem right this time:
There’s a woman, & she lives in your body,
& she’s running for President of the United States
of Me. This time, the woman won’t lose, i.e.
she’s a good girl: her skins are moisturized,
& she’s plucked the hairs that circled her nipples
like a wolf pack skirting a Neanderthal bonfire.
Do you wish to try the mirror scene again?
Under her tongue, she pops two kinds of E,
& into the looking-glass mirror falls little Mattie.
Why! a man’s voice wisps out as she tumbles
down, can’t you just smile?
Emily Florence Morley graduated from DePaul University in 2015 with a double-BA in History and Poetry. Her prior publications in Chicago and Upstate New York magazines are under her birth name. She enjoys working at DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives and dancing barefoot in alleyways during Chicago summer rains.
