Police State, Self-portrait, Lake Marginal, and Transition: Four Poems from J Andros

Police State

The closet is for when you don't

matter enough to be real;

the Florida son of a prison cop

was taught that a glance

to the right means a prisoner

is looking to his memory

A look to the left means

he is lying or imagining

Listening to myself I can't

stand fake floridity

I hear a slur like a rock

thrown under breath

Self-portrait

Ground-down

teeth A razor

dropping

in the shower

Skull

phone

Eyes of apertures

Buzzing chest

Missed

call Human

to house

a place to hide

Lake Marginal

A green thing, gender,

it soothes us;

in the lake

we find silk

slick like fish

caught by bare

hands; in the dark

cool water

we even

love ourselves.

But when

we leave

the lake, dripping,

genitaled,

breasted,

we are

reminded of

sticks to burn,

forced to be

reduced

to our base

truths.

Transition

There's eighty four

thousand paths

to the ocean. What

feels like an ocean.

No shame to have

a body. What an

ocean inside of my

skull. I'm feeling here

a bone in my hand.

No need for this guilt

for merely being

alive, for always

approaching an ocean

but never reaching it.