Taxonomy

Alex Bortell

Twice, I molt the girl. Fish float along shores. My father’s bobber sinks. When it leaps for a doe, the dog chokes. It chains my ankle. Tears me like fences. My underarms coarse. Between buckets of worms, I line my mouth with dirt. Lather butter and brown sugar on salmon. Stumble to the truck where a man idles. My center spoils. I’m veined by rivers. Itching for blunt force. He spears me while my father flicks a cigarette. Somewhere east of Lake Erie, you’re stuffed with wool and sawdust.

Testosterone tenors me. My father smells me bleeding. Not boy enough. On the platform, a man sniffs between your legs. He wants to tweeze you. Thinks he knows our fur’s pattern. Every day I unnatural. After pre-op appointments, I wade slick into manhood. The girl tips over in her father’s boat. I brace her neck, pump little lungs. I owe her nothing but all of me. Men lick anywhere they can fit a finger. July ripens my vocal cords. I grind against the gravel of their palms, swallow before they catch summer’s scent. My pelt shivers, ingrown. Wraps around yours. Men herd us toward the train. What good am I knuckled. We wait for them to pass through us.

To stimulate appetite, the girl winds a reel of film. She screams for her father while a man watches you settle into the theater. His smile barbs. With hands you speak on autonomy. I’d like to choose my end, I answer. A car nosing apart men. He savors your red shirt. A deer hangs by the kneecaps. You notice it happen. Polishing your body with a camera. He captures those he animals, raiding flat-chested wilds. The girl pins a boy’s wrists as she eats him. When I dream, my canines split holes in the plastic imprint of my teeth. From my thumb’s hook I suck salt. Permission to taste oneself. I muffle the thrill of the first needle with a bite in my arm. Make public my slaughter. On-screen, the girl tests the strength of her jaw. You bruise and remember it’s always about hunger.

Alex Bortell is a Chicago-based poet. He was a runner-up for RHINO Poetry’s 2025 Founders’ Prize.

Next Up: Anti-Body by Ruthie Chen