Still Life: Transvestite, Daylilies

Because he’s still becoming, because he’s
six-feet four, at least, and growing out his
blonde hair, because he wears an old floral
blouse, maybe from the local Goodwill, and men’s
nicked work boots. Because his small breasts shrink
beneath his massive shoulders and his gait
seems off, crooked, as if both legs, stiff as
pokers, had been snapped and glued—slap-dash—
back together. Because he stops in the hot
Way—exhausted, anguished, pink lipsticked
mouth tugged down, eyes casting about—and leans
against a fence ablaze with orange lilies.
(They are half-blown cornets, not quite become
the trumpets of full bloom.) Because the sturdy
stalks of green lean in toward his reckoning,
his face as haggard as chipped bricks. Because
the summer sun has forced him into spotlight.
Because this fresco of in- between is
both about erasure and new blooming.
(Because he’s simply someone feeling sad.)
Then let the why be lost. Ask instead: Who
willingly transforms? Who names the meta-
morphosis? How will we finally know
the hour of arrival?

—Sharon McDermott