by Carol Dorf
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The House voted on Thursday to pass a GOP-led bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools and educational institutions. The bill is not expected to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House has issued a veto threat. But the vote shows that Republicans are working to spotlight the issue – and it comes amid a GOP-led push in states across the country to pass similar bills restricting transgender athletes’ participation in sports. The final vote was 219-203 down strict party lines. —CNN, April 20, 2023. Photo: People attend a rally as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31 in Washington, DC. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP |
I tell my child
No, twilight is a given
I can’t slow the day’s passage to night
In the photo of the boardwalk through the swamp
I support my child
as they lean back to look up at the trees
in a inversion of flight
For a while we called
it the Rumplestilskin phase
toddler jumping up and down in fury
Luckily the old oak floor held solid
There are so many things
about the world I would change for you if I could
though I wouldn’t do anything about the dogs
in costumes participating in the Pride Parade
And then—You travelled to the Pride Parade
wearing wings—with friends who also found
wings to celebrate and now you are all flown
All these laws that are disrupting
your flight path—Not in my backyard
but I’ll do my best
No, twilight is a given
I can’t slow the day’s passage to night
In the photo of the boardwalk through the swamp
I support my child
as they lean back to look up at the trees
in a inversion of flight
For a while we called
it the Rumplestilskin phase
toddler jumping up and down in fury
Luckily the old oak floor held solid
There are so many things
about the world I would change for you if I could
though I wouldn’t do anything about the dogs
in costumes participating in the Pride Parade
And then—You travelled to the Pride Parade
wearing wings—with friends who also found
wings to celebrate and now you are all flown
All these laws that are disrupting
your flight path—Not in my backyard
but I’ll do my best
Carol Dorf is a Zoeglossia fellow, whose poetry has been published in three chapbooks. Her poetry has also appeared in previous issues of The New Verse News as well as in About Place, Cutthroat, Wordpeace, Unlikely Stories, Slipstream, The Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, and Maintenant. She is founding poetry editor of Talking Writing.