Theme & Variations

Theme & Variations
    “One rib, the whole cage, both, neither.”  ~ C. Durden


Heart in a cage, brain in a bone—
we’re always in drag,
like fire wearing stone.
              
        *

Every skeleton hides a closet,
and nothing we do or don’t do
can close it.

        *

Pecs, tits, tits, pecs—
gender is phrenology:
the mind has no sex.

        *

A bit of silk sliding over
hard muscle or a fedora
sitting pretty on a head of curls

is a sumptuous investment
in epistemological anxiety.
We say:  a body of knowledge.

        *

I, if that’s the word I want,
have never spoken without
the cunning articulate bones

translating every word
into something absurd,

so that even my quietest moans
are whispers dressed up as shouts.
I am my own haunt.