One day I went out to the tennis courts,
in the orange rain. It was spring. When I sat
down below the magnolia, the air
was warm with musk. Slowly a feather
drifted on my hair.
I realized I wanted to be a girl.

So I stared in the puddle, searching for signs
that my bright eyes
were meant to be closed.

When the moon rose in the distance,
and was crescent, it was like a sickle
gliding through fabric,
and my eyes taped the cuts
where it tore.

I wanted to make a dress of the punched-out sky,
hang it on my body,
when I could be the earth, he could be the moon.

The wind peppered with pollen, the cars
gilded with rust—I felt
myself grow smaller, to fit
my new body.

Then the boy in the tree reached out to my hand,
and for the first time,
I felt myself dance

in the shoes of another,
to his music, to his piano,
like a dream thinking of lightning
far away, in flower fields—

---

Kevin Le is a queer, second generation Vietnamese-American poet and writer. He is a first year MFA candidate at the University of New Hampshire, and has received a 2022 Academy of American Poets University prize.

---