by Sophia Bruce
I dream to be loved for my mind.
What a thing to dream, as a girl with new breasts
Foregoing the tinkling lunch bell calling
Calling calling me to lie down on a beautiful bed
With linen sheets forever. Sylvia Plath
Was not transexual but wanted to be a man.
What a thing, to be a man in a flowery blouse
Writing love songs, looking down on a sea
Of false eyelashes and acquiring ten thousand lipstick stains
On napkins. To glisten with sweat in front of
Savannah, Los Angeles, Dallas–
Even as your nipples poke softly through silk
And you sing about a faceless black woman
From one of your wet dreams.
Sophia Bruce is from New Haven, Connecticut, and is a rising sophomore at Smith College. She has previously been published in Jet Fuel Review, Long River Review, and others.
Emerge Literary Journal 