Intervention
I hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means?
Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch?
Concierge? What’s the cost? How’s video? Bite-sized? Long-take? Vérité? Any unaccepted file
types? Is analog more enduring? Do post offices deliver to a past life? How forever are Forever
stamps? Print, cursive, or typed? What’s more waterproof? How close are we to time travel? Is
there a pain-free option? Is it too forward to meet face-to-face? Do I just show up? Knock on the
door? Text when I’m there? Meet for tea? Pretend to be not-me? Would I be more believed
posing as substitute? Sitting in a pew? Sharing supper? What can I bring? How much baggage?
Is this temporary or indefinite? Why would I go back? To obtain guardianship? Can I protect
myself? Help with paperwork? Should I find a home? Apply insurance? Take my hand? Forgive
me? How long does history take to change? Is this one-way? Can I change my mind? What if I
can’t? Where have I ever really gone? What do I say? The more I live, the less I know? One day,
I am going to end up somewhere I wasn’t. One day, we are going to become what we thought
impossible.
————————
Endlings
Cowgirl wrangling in reverse, I go tit for tat.
Cite my soft spot for men unmasked by pansies.
I’m a fruitless, failed cub milking midnight.
Splitting his last eggs of autumn in butter,
he saves a seat. How rare the morning after.
We nest our potential, long haul bifurcation,
two teaspoons in heat. We quarter branches,
lay limbs akimbo. Kindling desires foresight.
We would rather rush, inhale, tally lives lived
between us—stretch timelines, let digits plunge.
I did not botch boyhood. I simply gave it up.
We exchange rings for slick wrist, ungild guilt
from glory. Whole frontiers stay unreached.
In the velvet death of winter, we break our breed,
disobey nomenclature. I enjoy not knowing the path.
Don’t pity the barren. We love it. Our reckless
raw now free from risk. Outlaws of nothing
stone but time. Lexicons, too, are seasonal.
Last of this name, I look forward to leaving
no proof of us, not even a hyphen to record
the blood we bridge—our spit alone will do.
Springtime’s canceled. Expect no offspring here.
Chrysanthemum is a poet and performance artist. She currently serves as Co-Director of the Providence Poetry Slam. She is a recipient of fellowships from Poetry Foundation, Kundiman, and Lambda Literary, which named her LGBTQ Writers in Schools’ inaugural Poet-in-Residence for the LGBTQ+ Youth Poet Laureate Residency. She became the first trans woman finalist of the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2016, and her teams won the Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam and the first-ever FEM Slam. With Justice Ameer, she staged the two-woman show ANTHEM at the American Repertory Theater's OBERON. Her work appears in Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets, The Nation, The Rumpus, Them, Button Poetry, among others. She was born to Vietnamese parents in Oklahoma City.