when i was in two bodies, halved
Peter Scalpello
insisting on life i dressed
myselves up, like a wound
as a bigger me, older & more engendered
than i am even now
though, then, i of course
defied age & sex
my father’s masculine was anger
i first gauged as urges indulged
to etch, as caveperson
the letter S with
a (nondescript) wrench, made up
of roughened integers so
that erasure shaped our liminal space
& the inside of his testicles read sis
let’s say the impulse
to deface already had
infinite rotational symmetry
it seems to surface in me today
screaming on regents street
at the injustices of the world
my mother’s feminine was doubt
i sensed in her primary colours
& her venus, which is the name
of a razor i took to both eyebrows
though barely there & now
vanished, replaced them with
love hearts; sky, sun, wine
but the security, i could literally inhale
it! i was untarnished & fine
& when i looked back up i was already
here
when i was in two people, doubled
everything served
disappeared down
my throat until the suburbs
brought it all back up again
with seven pints of revelation
to ingest the suede shoes
& the unwell man you see all the time
is you
both cells unmarried & yet
a replication, as healing
means to be repeatedly broken over again
still, when fingertips were viscous
& not-yet yellowed, the matter of us
tasted so gorgeous—
are you coming with me, or just
merely going
begin again
when i was in two
The Science
The uncertainty of conception and inherited traits, the miracle of identity and re-imagining of memory stored in the brain and body.
The Poet
Peter Scalpello is a queer poet and sexual health therapist from Glasgow, currently living in London. His work has been published internationally. His debut pamphlets will be published in March 2021 by Broken Sleep Books. Tweets @p_scalpello.
Next poem: Will it rain tomorrow? by Angélica Nardo Caseri