Two Poems by Trace Peterson

PUSSY

 my butt 
 my back 
 my stomach 
 my breasts 
 my shoulders 
 my arms leaning on the table 
 my uncanny valley 
 my deskjob aversion 
 my porcupine quills 
 my stoppages 
 my filler 
 my quicksand 
 my elevated archness 
 my foolproof schemes 
 my childlessness 
 my shipping costs 
 my frozen Hopper characters huddled in a diner 
 my ballistics estimates coming in under budget 
 my hair falling all around my face 
 my blind spot 
 my blond spit 
 my softness
 my blocked doorway
 my insufficient "no"
 my unfuckability 
 my team 
 my timing 
 my authorial deferment 
 my duplicate checks
 my straining to see the others
 my U-Haul following behind
 my gait 
 my educating
 my fogging up the window looking in on
 my schooling 
 my pushing back adjacent to
 my facts
  
  
  
   

QUEER POEM

  
 I'm 
 sad
 about 
 my
 ability
 to 
 do
 experimental
 life
 that
 persists
 beyond 
 this
 post
 yesterday
 before
 the
 word
 came
 out
 of
 exclaiming
 hello
 we’re
 here
 we’re
 sad
 about
 our
 ability
 to
 do
 much
 hashtag
 better
 than
 ink
 beyond
 pecs
 beside
 makeup
 singing
 in
 a
 bed
 of
 left
 markup
 that
 all
 messier
 cries
 not
 alone
 behind
 above
 against
 along
 among
 inside 

Trace Peterson is the author of Since I Moved In (Chax Press, 2019) and numerous chapbooks. She edits the small press & journal EOAGH, which has won 2 Lambda Literary Awards, and has co-edited the books Arrive on Wave: Collected Poems of Gil Ott and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poeticshttps://tracepeterson.com.