Jubilate Homo

    after Christopher Smart

For I will consider the transgendered person.
For he or she may be the servant of a less violent world.
For at the first touch of his nipples, he feels breasts roosting like
    plump birds.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with
    elegant longing.
For secondly, he stains his lips—Fire and Ice, Bruised Plum,
    Lasting Kiss.
For thirdly, he who is becoming she cuts the glans into a clitoral
    diamond.
For fourthly, she who is becoming who she always has been
    reverses the phallus to a cave of consolation.
For fifthly, she bleeds.
For sixthly, she lies still with a smooth stent in her vagina.
For seventhly, she carries home groceries in the twilight.
For eighthly, she sleeps hard.
For there is nothing sweeter than her peace when at rest.
For there is little more fierce than the need to be known.