Harper Ellen Houston
Protection
I was getting a shot in my ass
when they asked me if I had travelled
recently. The gloom lifted
from a lukewarm winter
and spring is gonorrhea yellow,
pollen covering cars
and filling gutters. A yellow nothing
like the sun, like my asshole
is like a dead eye in the dark
of A Tell-Tale Heart
and I want to bury an older man.
While everyone coughed and sneezed,
I was sent home because my throat
was slimed with words I couldn’t say
until now: I was raped…
You said it before I could.
You are gentle, the way you say
we gotta be good Christian lovers
keeping the sheets between us,
waiting for the blessing
of The Health Dept.
You are patient, the way you kiss
every single slice of me.
Just as the marks on my arms
fade from fresh pink,
just as I was getting better,
our moment turned
into an apocalypse. I sit,
stuck at home smoking
away the terror and making myself
eat before throwing away
the last groceries I’ll get for a while.
All I think about is you,
just a county away, and I can’t help
taking it personally
when executive orders replaced
our simple Christian sheets.
Harper Ellen Houston has lived in North Carolina most of her life. This is her first published poem, but she has a small lovechild collection she is shopping around. When Houston is not writing, she pays for cat food as a chef. She is a 33 year-old trans woman whose raw experience cracks her voice.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.