In my mind you are still
in the dressing room, trying
to decide if the suit
looks too boyish or just
boy—as in father
saying boy, do you look cute
when she descends in her home-
coming dress, and yes, the she is you,
and yes, the you is me. See
how I play with pronouns?
Slipping them on like the tie
knotted so natural, and no,
the tie is not like a noose,
more like a figure eight, the tail
resting at my belly, a new
umbilical cord and a doctor
announcing Congratulations,
it’s a baby, a beautiful baby.

Published Aprill 13, 2025

Shanley Poole is an MFA candidate at UNC-Greensboro. Their work is forthcoming or has been published in F(r)iction, 14 Poems, and Burnaway. She was a 2017 fellow at the Beargrass Writing Retreat, a 2024 writer-in-residence at Azule Residency, and is the current storyteller at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency.

Kiko Bordeos (1982) was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Kiko began painting and taking photographs when he moved to Queens, New York in 2002 at the age of 20. Mostly self-taught, Kiko also studied black and white photography at the International Center of Photography as well as collage and mixed media at the Art Students League in New York City.