THE ONLY SPACE I’VE EVER BEEN
I want to wear the
statement pants
Urban Outfitters makes unavailable
in my size, have them
tell the world of the delicate
patterns repeating within me.
To play left wing without fear of men
who can concuss me an eighth time
before twenty-five and embody
of self without having
to defend them.
It’s work, this committing
to identity. Asking for an understanding
that I’ve changed while unsure
whether I was ever anything else.
The only space I’ve ever been
good at claiming is the seat
next to me on the bus. Even then
I’ll move my bag when asked.
Coming out feels like the guy manspreading
next to me won’t let me off at my stop, pins me
with wide knees as my destination goes by.
I’ll spend the rest of the ride questioning
only what I question. Learning
the only thing worth fearing
is the answer
to what I haven’t let myself ask.
SECOND-GRADE GARBAGE
MAN
In second grade, I wanted
to be a garbage man. Instead, I teach
people to write essays, cite
sources, admit what’s not ours.
No longer a man, I feel
less like garbage. Show me
a landfill and I’ll tell you it’s a source
site, new meadow in the middle
of its sluggish construction.
We fill land with trash , our selves
with gender, but so much is beautiful
only when we leave it alone to grow.
In second grade, everyone wanted
to be a superhero or Sedin twin.
collecting bins of whatever else
had outgrown its purpose, taking
a truckful of trash to build
misfit meadows on a foundation
of refuse and second-grade men
all of us filling in our identities
within fields of what’s been left at the curb.
WHAT YOU STEM FROM
“We were once lavender, / roots reaching
for one another below the dirt”
- Natasha Ramoutar
If April showers bring May flowers, Mom’s
lavender
is early, brought to bloom by a Mother
Nature
with odd work hours forced to drop seeds
off
before the other neighbourhood moms.
Nature makes itself work, despite us
insisting it needs to be nurtured. April
seems to get that, drops a bit of sun off
on hungry petals just to signal something
out there is worth growing towards.
Those same spring rays hit the harbour
from my window, a porthole of ships
shedding cargo like petals nurtured
too long by an overbearing sun. They’ll
turn
their soil of workers, bloom something new
and grow towards the vacant sea.
Mom’s dad drafted ship blueprints, let
them
poke their bows out from drydocks I pass
on my lunch breaks. Grandad never took
breaks
got through everything so quickly he
became the first
person I loved to finish living, bygone bundle
of lavender, reminder of how to poke into
being.
Unlike Mom, I don’t know how to grow
flowers right where last year’s stood.
something that holds weight, stays afloat.
But then I doubt Grandad ever drew
flowers ,
that Mom grew cargo ships
sailing seas of front yard soil.
A seed sticks to what it knows
and maybe I should too. Stop worrying
about growing in where stems stood before
me.
Boats know to deliver what we have
made, flowers to make beauty
wherever we deliver them.
I like to think I could draw my own plans
and flower, become someone who grows
the kind of beautiful things only I can
deliver.
Andrew French is a queer poet and professor from North Vancouver, BC. They have published 3 chapbooks of poetry, most recently Buoyhood (Forthcoming 2025, Alfred Gustav Press). Their writing has previously appeared in EVENT, PRISM International, long con, and a number of other journals across North America and the UK. In their spare time, they interview their favourite poets for their poetry podcast, Page Fright.