by Jennessa Hester
petrichor

be prepared to freeze     scout
 master says or you might not survive

beyond us     mist crawls along the skin
 of a pond     he says to breathe it in

big breaths     like a man     and taste
 the fresh cuts it leaves along the inside

of your throat     let your body quiver
 as your blood bleaches the fine air red

i stand frozen beside the master     my throat
yoked tight within his grasp     a firm man’s hand

i feel     his fingers crawl inside     my mouth
 and slouch down through the blood

he fingers the folds     and they peel back
 leading him deeper and deeper down

i do not know who dragged us under
 the water     i cannot tell my flesh from his own

i try to scream     but men only
 jump to save little girls from drowning

looking up at the pond     i wonder if water
 freezes beneath the surface     or just on top

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Jennessa Hester is a transgender writer and scholar based in Texas. She is a Lambda Literary Fellow and has been a finalist for the Rhysling Award and Prufer Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Strange Horizons, Bellingham Review, Cream City Review, HAD, and elsewhere.