he fancied how a tutu felt
on top of his jeans
how the gauze coarseness and
ragged coarseness brushed together
for a new kind of coarseness
but he had to cover it with cargo shorts
and then conceal that with
a maxi dress flowing in the wind
for it to feel right
not that anything ever feels quite right
pants on top of skirts
and skirts on top of pants
until no more could fit
and it all fell down
revealing nakedness underneath
that yearned to be a gender
it’s hard to be numerous stacked layers
we all get so much more
than we can carry
layers of soft cotton and layers of
itchy, stuffy cardigans
layers that look like fabric
but are just handprints
on some days, he was human
but felt like a pingpong table
that yearned to be a human yet
perhaps also wanted to be pingpong
I know that makes no sense
but most human things don’t
we make a click-click sound
as the ball meets the table
our eyes track it efficiently
tilting sideways but less than with tennis
each hemisphere controls a different side
it’s not like he had a dude hemisphere
and a gal hemisphere
but he had a pingpong brain and a human brain
and a what the fuck is this even brain
and a little area that really liked to feel
the tutu and whisper: this is who I am
while switching on the jeans brain
who said: this is also me, deal with it
but instead of the deal-with-it brain
it kicked in the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
I’ve never seen the pingbrong pain
but I know it looks green and flat and lonely
no one has a brain area for
wanting to be human
yet some people do
so many different sectors
to ensure that everything fits in
that the paddle always hits something
and sends it flying away from you
click-click, ping-pong
tu-tu, pain-brain
Maija Haavisto has had two poetry collections published in Finland: Raskas vesi (Aviador 2018) and Hopeatee (Oppian 2020). In English her poetry has appeared in e.g. Cosmospen, Topical Poetry, Discretionary Love, Littoral, Eye to the Telescope, Shoreline of Infinity and Kaleidoscope.