by Jackson D. Moorman
Shō Poetry Journal

prepared to be bare chested for the first
time in public. Fear I’ll be breaking
some cardinal rules. Fear I’ll be

clocked as a woman, hauled off
for indecent exposure. Fear my reflection
will reveal me still curvier than I thought.

Fear my new chest will fall apart
at the seams. It took weeks of convincing
that when the bandages came off I wouldn’t

split like a ripe orange hurled at the wall,
stitches refusing to hold, spilled pulp.
No, it’s more like light

spilling through the live oak. Glimmers
on the water, glimmers on the spring-warm
jasmine, glint of the hoodie zipper. Unzipped,

then off, off for the first time, somehow
like tasting for the first time maybe
the way the air tastes when you’re happy,

big sweet gulps of it. My survival—
it was thought—as unlikely as the manta ray
that wandered from the Bay to the lake,

went up the channel and twirled through
the iron bars meant to catch big debris.
They interviewed a marine biologist. She said,

What most people don’t know is that rays
can easily survive in brackish water meaning
the sea or the lake or the space between.

No, it was the passage that astounded,
the dance to survive the stricture.
She said, I’m still amazed he got through.

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Jackson D. Moorman (he/him) is a queer and trans poet, organizer, and nurse who lives in Oakland with his wife, son, and two tiny rescue mutts. He is co-creator of the poetry journal Frozen Sea and co-organizer of a poetry series for Palestine, In Water & Light. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Shō Poetry Journal, the minnesota review, and elsewhere. Read more of his work at jacksondmoorman.com