Daze Jefferies is a poet, experimental musician and academic living in St. John’s, NL. Her work explores the intersections of folklore, health and gender among two particular populations, trans people and sex workers. She is currently looking at issues of mobility, solidarity, auto/biography, and post/memory within the trans communities of Newfoundland and Labrador. You may preview and purchase her two collections of poetry, TESTO SLAVE and SEESAW WITH THE SPEAR, at www.payhip.com/fornicating

NIGHT ISLAND

not seasick
is ya?
i’ve heard
three times
already
since i
went back
to the
radical,
the harbour
where
bad things
happen

if you are
anything
like me
you might
find

black lops
on lops,

and lips that meet
each other for
the first time
at the night island
lighthouse,
pitiful
cenotaph

when the
life vest
comes off
i think about
alkalinity

how easy
it is to
take away

i know that
rachel bryk
would get it

when i tell
my dad that
sooner or later
we are all
going under
he says that
shit floats

it’s shallow there
somewhere, see

YODELAYHEEHOO

this time
of year
we used to
travel:

no-way to get out
of the kampang,

no-way to fund
that surgery,

no-way to
really make
me laugh now

yodelayheehooing
we think back to
the peripheries
our tongues
have run
along

the stranger who
liked to plant
kisses on
dry skin,

filled maracas
with poisonous
seeds,

left peanuts out for the
chick-with-a-dick-a-dees
whose stilettos were
caught on branches

backyard feeders,
loose women

even
the virus
wants to
take hold
fast

it knows
a simple
touch
doesn’t
have the
power to
redefine
intention

to
pull down
the skirt for
an august
jackabaun
who is sorta
missable
if we can
mind the
time

if the heart
is fire,
how can we
snuff it out?

if your sister
is frail,
why would
you split?

she was
born here
and she
wants to
die here,

and so do i

SEESAW WITH THE SPEAR
Previously published in the poetry collection SEESAW WITH THE SPEAR available here.

on the train
that leaves
you
behind
i sit next
to a window
that shows me
worlds
merging
into each other

francois
is beside
me reading
muriel rukeyser

he believes
that change is
an illusion

that even if
we never
develop,
we still
won’t perish

we just
disperse

i want to tell him
it’s too early to cry
but i fall asleep

when i find
myself at a
support group
for the first time
i feel daylight
again

when i see
lord snow
in the plateau
i learn that
liquid methadone
does not
forgive

as far as love
is concerned
we are meant
to keep
waiting for
the unknown
under a
fig tree

to transgress,

repeat the
mistake

one
of us
must
agree
that it’s
too late
for
certain
things,

call off
the Q&A
when
we sweat
off our
brows

someone
leaves marks
and calls me
inarable,

always
indentifiable

i want to know:

if the water
shuts off
we will reel
around the
fountain?

are we
ever
cut out
for
the shit
we learn?

i look away
from the
eyes that
want to
see me

i only know
your smile
from the
other side
of the screen

when all these
places i love
show me that
my transness is
intersectional
i want to
believe them

when you help
me write this
story with flesh
i want things to
come to an end

sit up
again

call your
mother

seesaw with
the spear
that hurts me

i won’t find
repletion in:

beginnings,

social
theories,
the sweetness
of cauliflower

i won’t
feel
guilty
as i
gently
walk
back
and forth
across
a grave

i won’t
know
how to
define
loveable
without
hands
that run
all over

but i will
learn to
get up
when
the life
inside
you
widens
as you
reach,

shocks me
when we
touch,

teeters
when i
begin
to know
you

if the moment
i knew i was
a woman
was touchable,
how would
it feel?