MOTHERHOOD!

The first time!
It was in the shower!
With coconut body
wash! It was white!
And it burned!
The bubbles!

I remember! Doing!
It! Five times!
In the downstairs bathroom!
Into the sink!
With the hand! Soap!
Sink! I tell you!
I am just as repulsed!
As you!
But as you!
Can see!

I am not a mother!
I am!
Not a woman!
Who! Has children!
It could have happened!
At fourteen! Plan B!
Those pills! She’s now!
A house! Wife in North!
Dakota! But see!

I am no Mother!
My rags could be mothers!
They could!
Be fathers!
They have enough!
To worry about!
Dried together!

Sent to the laundry!
Mat for a mother!
To wash!
Rags! Mother!
Can I send my laundry to Puget!
Sound!!

Mother!!
I am not!!
A mother!!
Not!!
A gripping!!
Non-!
pro-!
creator!!

THE ON BOYS

Daughter hits the boys on—
The daughter and the boys go on hitting.
Daughter gets hit on by the boys.
The boys hit the daughter on—
the On Boys, who turn it on, hit the daughter.
The daughter and the boys were on, hitting—
On the daughter, the boys lay hits.
On the boys, the daughter was hit, and hit.
The daughter was hit by the boys on the back.
The daughter was hit in the back there by those boys.
Daughter hit the boys back, on—
Whose daughter is being hit on by those boys?
Whose boys are getting hit on by that daughter?
Whose daughter do we blame the hit on? Our boys—
The boys turned everything on with one hit on that daughter.
Why should the blame be on the boys?
What about the daughter? She hit—
The boys get turned on by the daughter.
The daughter gets turned on by the boys.
The boys turn on the daughter.
The boys turn on the daughter.

Benny Sisson is a trans poet. She serves as the Assistant Poetry Editor for Consequence Magazine. She also reads poetry and reviews books for Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work is forthcoming with Fearsome Critters, Foglifter Press, Bellingham Review, and elsewhere. She also teaches at Adelphi University, where she earned her MFA in creative writing. She currently lives in Tacoma, WA.