this bridge called my back

sometimes i wish you and i were lego

figures, stuck on slabs of green block, with bodies

that look the same, that curve nowhere, that

cannot be seen, with body parts that are inter-

changable. i would take off my short crop plastic hair

and let you put your round hand down the hole in my

lego head, and then wear your curls, over my blue square chest

we would fix our claws and square feet into each other’s,

your foot coming out of my hand, and laugh our lego love

i would take off my head and fit yours on my

neck where there would be no throat that chokes, just happy

plastic. and we would swing our legs and march over lines and bricks

and i would hang through the chewed off cracks in yellow walls, fix my

claw into empty spaces. i’d stick you on my hip and jump down walls

and carry you across all plastic borders and lands that

slide in children’s minds, and yes i’d carry you always

even across their hard-played houses that look ugly real

and even with our clumsy bodies that curve in spaces that are not ours

that cannot ever be fixed on any land, or block, or brick,

i’d carry you always, on this bridge called my back*

*phrase adopted from This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa.

Queer Zenana