notes: after a talk, in discovering poetry in what she was saying, I reminded a poem sitting in my vault, left there to pay a visit one day...

poets don’t have gender
just faint words embossed on their flesh
like secondary sexual characteristics,
a many-years-old growth of impressions
which is never fully expressed,
shave it off or leave it for its charm?
bearded Hemingway hunts down his death –
a lazy lioness in a broken trajectory of flight
pounces on him swiftly and heavily
like tropical rain after a long drought,
how long did he have to wait for her
hidden, craving,
feeding the mosquitoes of routine with his own blood?!
after all, who has to wait for whom
in this unwritten code of existence
who is hunting whom?
poets don’t have gender
solitude’s hermaphrodites
incomprehensibly wanting every time the other the Other,
in torture giving birth to only themselves
which are repeated,
а repetition of а repetition
repeat please
а repetition of а repetition,
how does one escape these hula-hoops of bodies?
reconciling these differences within oneself
smoothing genitalia,
everything will go smoothly, Hemingway
without any snags,
the last boundaries of self-identification are crossed,
Gordian knots of mutual obligations are hewn,
Sisyphus’ stone of life is pushed from the summit,
genius doesn’t have gender
just a throat raw from shouting
between the legs

poets don't have gender
Halyna Krouk