Context (Meghan)

Context

I said person but meant man.

You heard boy in the space between.

I am a woman person.

I want you to see a woman person.

You are a man, fully grown.

You are a man who wants me to see a man, fully grown.

So I said person and you heard boy

because the girls before dressed up, paraded,

sighed girl, girl, girl, and boy, boy, boy,

and lover made them giggle,

husband made them dream of days but not beyond,

amoureux was foreplay because it sounded nice.

Partner was a word left over from the second wave,

its sack of spider eggs returned

to hatch on someone else’s skin.

Maybe mine.

I said person, then significant.

You said I am no trial.

No trial size, sweet teeth satisfied?

No trial for lies, our precursors’ crimes?

No trial period, conditional use,

but Darling, we’re all on probation.

(Happy transmitted better,

unruly reverberation supported

by the blood in your warm hands.)

I said person, diluted.

I meant woman and man, full strength.

These definitions fail but not completely.

Here are my arms, my eyes,

Trust, which sounds like rust, and might have been

had we stopped building shelters

and slept in the rain.

I see you are a man, fully grown.

I am a woman, undiluted.