Lawrence Mullen

trans bodies are anomalies

bones fracture and snap
you’ve got to cast them together
grab some plaster cast
your anatomy textbook

my home is falling apart
i mean look
the tiles are trickling off the roof
through the vacant gaps
from the sinking wooden rafters
the glass from the windows
has eroded back to sand

lead dust is falling out of my ribs
a coke bottle fell through my pelvis

i’m all wired together
how do you expect me to speak
i don’t have a jaw

throw a sheet over me for now
the teaching hospital
the morgue
has enough of me
no not that sheet
the clean cotton one
i’ll make a nice forgotten-about lamp


Lawrence Lorraine Mullen is a non-binary Philadelphia-based poet and graduate student pursing an MFA in Poetry. They have been published in Crab Fat, Pomona Valley Review, GTK Creative, and Spiral Poetry I.