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ALAN
Out of the sun
1
lived with you in trust
A double son in dark might each be proud,
Revolve in you (my girlish moon must
Fold its song, no longer loud),
Serene your single orbit bring me birth.
But now my spectral dust
To dust-and yours the mirth–
Must quite alone unwind its shroud
And bring a squeaking man on earth.
It was almost light when I woke up. I read the lines over
several times, and saw that I had decided. I had chosen, at
tm
very least, to become a poet. I would have to learn to seem outwardly
beyond the reach of doubt-daring, energetic, and perhaps (to
be
absolutely safe) coarse. With the disguise of surgery, I could parade
my hard-won maleness. But for myself- with poetry as my ruse and
my salvation-I would keep my double sex physically intact. A
public man with a private womb. My transmutation, my twinning–
I would not give up one iota.
