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| This is not a real book. Its cover has been A-I generated at Shutterstock by The New Verse News to accompany this poem. |
I sent my boy to his fifth grade class
and he returned a girl,
apparently operated on by the school nurse,
without our permission,
just like Trump predicted.
The school also confiscated his backpack
(or her backpack? I’m not sure.
It was easier to imagine others
with this woke problem).
In his—ok, wait here while I ask
my previous son what pronoun to use.
He said she wants to play
with his sister’s dolls,
while she said he wants an operation too.
I’m confused.
And then my wife mentioned polyamory,
and I said, we already store our guns
in more than one bunker.
The book they confiscated from my son’s —
wait here—
“Terry!”
He said she wants to spell her name with an ‘i’.
The book they confiscated from Terri’s backpack was
“Trans Fats: The Real Story,”
which the school librarian,
who moonlights as the science teacher,
thought was about fat boys transitioning
into skinny girls,
and vice reversa.
Though Trump railed against
these secret surgeries as if they’re evil incarnate,
I’m not so sure.
Terri has since won All State
in her youth softball league
and her sister is on track to win gold
in boy’s figure skating.
Chris Kaiser’s poetry has appeared in Rattle, Eastern Iowa Review, Dissident Voice, Better Than Starbucks, and The Scriblerus, as well as in anthologies from Moonstone Press. His poetry also appeared in Action Moves People United, a music and spoken word project partnered with the United Nations.