BIO
Keagan Wheat writes poetry focused on FTM identity and his congenital heart disease. His work appears in Glass Mountain 24, Shards 4 & 7, and Sink Hollow Issue 8. He is the Poetry Editor of Defunkt Magazine. Living in Houston, Texas, he enjoys collecting odd dinosaur facts and listening to way too many hours of podcasts. Twitter: @kwheat09
Working in Transition
We
stood on this rock floor surrounding
a fire pit. He offered me some Wendy’s
fries. I asked him if he ever felt like
nothing could push or pull him from his
family. My mom still misgenders me, but
she’s
my mom.
I’ve
been looking for this for years, for
someone to confirm that you don’t just
leave familia even when they don’t see
a piece of you.
She still brags about me, still holds me. I
see my grandma
stutter through this
foreign name, KEYgen.
She calls me,
mija still, but Mom corrects her, then
mijo.
My mom suggests
You’ll
be the one to abandon the family.
I keep walking the empty sidewalk, light
grey speckled with glimmers of feldspar or
churt, maybe ordinary quartz anything
catching my attention. Pass a worn yellow sign.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
But I am still choosing them
when I, holding his hand
dangling from the top bunk,
am on my way out to a dance
with people carrying scars
perpendicular to the one lining my chest.
Lower Octave
bite
of a
dogs
ear
teaching
care for
strength, microwave
cup of tea brewing, learning you grew
in
tear-down, excitedly climbing tree
that’s
at highest nine feet, sky shift-
ing to a
static aching green reflex,
reheating
tortillas as meditation,
yellow
hum of candle placed at
feet,
losing so badly you never
relearn rules, plaster face with
smooth
beard standing open,
picking
fleas off round new
bellies under a small tree,
tapping comal to check
temperature, relearning
the
slippage of your
name & realizing there
is no nickname for you