‘Her/Him/Our/Them/They/Us/Their Body’, ‘phylum chordata, which also includes . . .’ & ‘I Be, But I Ain't Is’
Rosemary Kimble is a self-taught photographer whose journey began while volunteering with wildlife abroad. Moved by the stillness and wisdom of nature, she began capturing the spirit of animals, cultures, and landscapes across the globe. A spiritual seeker and an intuitive by trade, Rosemary uses her sensitivity to subtle energies as a guide in her photographic exploration. Her images serve as portals into the unseen—where the veil between worlds is thin and the sacred reveals itself. Through her lens, she invites viewers to experience these realms and spiritual connections for themselves. www.visionsandreflections.com/photography/ rosemarykimble@gmail.com
Her/Him/Our/Them/They/Us/Their Body
Identity is only a collection of stories: the ones
told about us, coloring
the ones we tell ourselves.
The true magic of her body could only be found within,
a muscular luminosity, in which the body
resonated with bloodied, a Blues holla'
no longer sorrow,
but beauty & defiance moaning one breath.
She came out to his father
by sending him the results of her Kinsey Scale Test : a gender-
queer,
transmasculine persona,
representative of the polyamorous, omnisexual,
gender fluid experience:
fat, Black, neurodivergent &
badass.
Her/his , their relentless heartbeat, an ardent grace
of fearless sensitivity, without arrogance or apology,
the burgeoning pulse of conviction,
that embodies the crackle of blue lightning when it strikes.
She whistled & crowed his body's betrayals,
its pleasures & undefinable selves,
into a psalm that sanctified her holy numbered oil,
where he gets to be,
the heroine of her life story: beautiful , even when
existing in someone else’s space & no fear
of his body being her body,
flinging the plasticity of his identity into the air
& knowing she was going to land on his feet. A slow
& writhing tumescence of feline stretch & purr
roiling under her skin, a fluctuating sexuality
(he is, but couldn't be more this,
without her that) interconnected through layers of heat
& pheromones, expectations & loss. The raptor eyes
scouring her/his happiness for its flaws.
But loving themselves thoroughly, without caring
what others thought. A love of Self, the fire
born of another dream of fire, to say this is what we are,
this is what we will, always, are gonna be.
phylum chordata, which also includes . . .
post-
chimera/ the testosterone cursed
effemanance/ : assumed girlish in nature?/ trans-
duced/ : the best parts of him/ sans-
semen/ the vestigial masculine psycho-
logically feminine /yearning to trans-
cend the peripheral gaze
of disgust/ & offense /post-
trans-
phobia/ : the bruises
blossomed /to stigma caked with
blood /soon hardened to sub-
terranean trauma/ : a vein
of nascent coal/ crushed by hydraulic
force/ become a war of attrition /vs.
the genetic stride of patriarchy /&
its Uber-
Christian base/ trans-
sexual/ : a diamond in the rough
snipped &
tucked inward /trans-
formed/ : a pelvic wiggle
in his walk/ & exquisitely
manicured middle finger
to the idea
that she could be erased/
or silenced
I Be , But I Ain’t Is
The quiet dusky (defined exotic) & cunning woman
yo mama warned you about
who was first straddled then swallowed. The vestigial divot
where the angel pinched her lips into blinding silence. The dark regions
of her Self
like a mythic, or inner landscape
of annular solar eclipsing her beauty / the thousands of purpled-
black vellum crows
hurtling sunward & soon discovered her blood was on fire. The kite-
flutter dip
& rise of caw-caw cawing a multi-sonic gang tattoo / as
ebonic as the sum of ancestors traveled within her.
I have seen this dangerous looking woman
somewhere before.
Her Elisabeth Moss eyes. A glowering
flared diamond-like
shards of starlight glittering a silver-toothed staccato
of stealth in waiting. The erratic compass of ranging wolves
telegraphing her feral bloodline
into the lunar ghostlight
like a black raincoat hoodie that surrounds.
The livid conflagration
that makes men gimp legged crawl
like a car-struck dog (k/not my name & haint my house)
/ that enflames her tongue: a Molotov cocktail / Angela
Davis graffiti-spattered Power to The People
revolutionary bravado against the wall
/ like her fingers uncurling
then curling back into a fist: you never know how strong you are
until being strong is the only choice you have.
Her viper slang Obeah of chicken bones
blood-tainted spit
& menses loomed a heresy of bridge collapse, the ice-
cracked boulder to rubble . An owl pellet—a wad of fur, and a jumble
of femurs and little ribs—oracle bones / as meta-
phor her terrible sound
that will not fucking shut the fuck up.
She / gone ghetto-
like the spontaneous combustion
of an accident waiting to happen
/ is Harriet Tubman on yo' ass
determined to make space
where the world says there is none for her.
Note: Italicized quote by Bob Marley.
Henry (7) Reneau Jr. is the author of the poetry collection, freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press). His work is published in Superstition Review, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Notre Dame Review; Punt Volat; The Ana and Oyster River Pages.
