“Right to Bear”
I have a right to bear
children—
shiny new ones
all my own,
so new they
don’t yet have
tags sewn to
their inseams, steam
fresh from the
press of flesh,
sinews unworn and
unweary: mine, yours.
I have a right to bear
hardship—
like how I miss you
too much to love you,
and the loss of dreams
that is the prize of living.
I am at liberty to lose
my balance, reel
into myself quite by accident,
and pull my hair behind my ears
while stuttering hello.
I have a right to bear
insecurity—
in the Post Office and dormitory,
in bars and alleyways between
cars and destinations, always the in-between
in which my shoulders stray forward,
my eyes slouch down and around,
and I long for arms—bulky, hairy ones
with hard trigger-pulls and a double-barreled
chest attached, breathing steadily.
I possess the freedom to wish
hard for that chest wherever I go.
Not to be accompanied, but to be
emancipated and manly, unapproachably
fuzzy, and everywhere adored, yet
terrifying in a new way altogether:
clawing for honey, lumbering for trout,
bugging campers out.
I have a right to bear arms.
