I wanted to be a man
until I met enough men
to know better. The pain
of understanding that arrives too late
is the teeth of handsaw
against skin, a mistake
while dragging away limbs
after a storm; I rend
my flesh like wax,
a wound that’s worse
when I look at it. My own blood,
the white of my bone
exposed. Bleached, dying
coral. Ashed-over desert,
one dry lakebed
after another. I thought
I was helping. I thought
I was restoring order. I have
no excuse for the damage
I have done. Men are killing
the world. My skin will heal.
Will knit a pale contrail
across the smaller sky of my body.
Will still be the skin of a man.