Rivka Clifton
Transistor 

 


I hum a little  

pleasure into a body. 

Is this a song? A lover once  

 

told me, within each body a song.  

 

He held a piece of shattered glass— 

We were on his balcony.  

 

A bat flopped 

in the darkened grass 

and beyond that 

 

 

* 

 

an oiled glow. I could hear the mangled voice 

 

bleating out of the drive thru. 

I was falling in love  

 

with the thought of touching  

a body like mine, 

 

the pleasures of another’s hand coming 

 

 

* 

 

down across me— 

little muscle cranking the body  

into song. Whose hand  

 

are you holding tonight? Is it flesh or glass  

 

that turns the volume knob 

at the base of the skull to the left? 

 

 

* 

 

I waited to be turned 

inside out. He was chattering 

down the block, my song 

 

wafting up from inside  

his clothes. 

I could hear it 

 

like a national anthem. How soon 

the body becomes a phantom  

 

a humming transistor. 
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Image by Ayşenur Özgören from Pexels
Rivka Clifton is the transfemme author of Muzzle (JackLeg Press) and Wrong Feast (Baobab Press) as well as the chapbooks: Action (Split/Lip Press), MOT and Agape (from Osmanthus Press). She has work in: Pleiades, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, and other magazines.
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