After picking fruit, came empty stomachs.
We followed the men, to the Priest
half-covered in silk and half in shadows,
his voice quiet, assuring our working limbs
God rewards empty stomachs.

Then the I lost care, the Father charged:
‘Men don’t sleep with men.’
And then, my mind ran like deer.
In the bush, enlarged, I pulled my pants;
I looked, there was hair: this made me a man.

Shouldn’t I want a woman:

Only I look at Tomas.  Then came feeling:
tongue, hands, eyes & voice
make love in pandemonium.

After the service, dinner: apples.
In bed, I grapple; even so, I have only
to think about Tomas; I touch
the mistake, thicken, the haggard doubt:
             I lean down, look and start:
             I make a man using hands,

        can I be a man with women’s need?

 Pieces of the crime
drip down dark blankets,
warm scrawny drops
his dubiety solicits
      Las Venas Abiertas de Piety:
I chose to remain silent praying that night
 sliding down like a root in the heat of earth.

     clutching mineral & men’s sweat to my breast.
   Old doubt, with old skin, peels in serial exodus.
 Inflexible growing disremembers the man
 of barbed perfection and obedient offspring:
 enigmas sprout in flesh at the brink of devilish Tomas                                                        

(Iceman Parable, cont’d, new stanza)

 
                          Tomas accepted.        The Priest, head-bowed                                            
                          The sleep-over         forms a cross
                          approaches and         on his chest.  About his
                                      the sound         robe are words
                                                     a man
                                        of doors          in drip-drop
                          are locking loudly.         evening-letters.

 Yo no voy a tomar ‘ice.’  Fue divertido: “ICE”.

Akiva Israel is a transgender artist currently doing time at California Men’s Colony.