Binx Perino

Excuse me
                for putting
                            my fingers
                where they
                            don’t belong–
                I’m no scientist.


A sea bass had a sex change.
                This happens quite frequently
among them, quite naturally.
                It’s basic biology,
though less than ten
                percent of the global
ocean is mapped
                and charted and
cataloged. So much
                is missing down
where the overlooked sea
                bass flounders. My hands


are deep in the water
                of things I don’t


                            quite understand.
                                          I reach and feel


                            the skin of a coastal
                ancestor sliding across


                            the binary, swimming
                                          in my fingertips.


 

When preparing a salad, I forget
to wash the lettuce leaves. Some-
thing in the refrigerator grows
older and odorous. The garbage
reeks of forgetfulness. There’s
an umbrella sitting dry during
a downpour, which soaks me
completely just before a meeting
I am running late to. It is Wednesday.
Or it is Tuesday. My calendar
is hung up on a month that isn’t
current yet feels present. In it’s
absence is its presence, repeats
in a voice message. I can’t answer.
I can’t call. I am swallowing
my words because the last time
I saw you was the last. It’s lodged
in my throat. It’s stuck on my wall.
It festers in the corner of my mind,
sweet rot of white strawberries.

Binx River Perino is a queer poet from Texas with an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. A participant in the Sundress Academy for the Arts’ 2024 Trans/Nonbinary Writers Retreat, their work has appeared in Tyger Quarterly, Hooligan, Door is a Jar, Cold Mountain Review, and elsewhere. Based in Chicago, he is an occasional contributor for Third Coast Review and an organizer with the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America.