Laura McCullough
has two collections of poetry, What Men Want (forthcoming from XOXOX Press) and The Dancing Bear (Open Book Press 2006), as well as a chapbook of prose poems, Elephant Anger (Mudlark).
She has won two New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowships, one in prose and one in poetry, and a partial scholarship from the Vermont Studio Center. She has also been a Prairie Schooner Merit Scholar in Poetry and has served, on the staff at Bread Loaf.
Among her publishing credits are Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Nimrod, Boulevard, The Portland Review, and other journals.
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Beautiful Androgyne
There’s nothing in the eyes to distinguish
between bifurcated genders, all eyes round
regardless of the face they’re found in, race
and gender taxidermist’s tricks. Like the toy
maker in Blade Runner, godless and amazed,
then the android, devoid of empathy, lifts an
eyeball from a saline-protein broth and rolls
it jelly-like between his indifferent fingers
until . . . you fill in the ellipsis. Genderqueer,
Pansexual or Omni- or A-, it doesn’t matter.
I hunt you down for your secret third way,
the rejection of myth, mythological seeds
in the pocket any Johnny can sow, removed
from their indigenous landscape, sure to be
invasive elsewhere. But in this light, your
eyes are beautiful. Hold one hand, palm
out, show me what is stuck there, what grows. And
be careful now, close that hand breastbone-
solid, and listen for what breathes around us.
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