Three Poems by Carson Sandell

Transfem Sonnet No.9

3 pills swallowed dry by 6 a.m.
2 bottles atop overdue hospital
bills join the collection I am
curating in my buckled
desk drawer. a surgeon draws
dash lines where my future
vagina will be. he is not
in scrubs, but blue wranglers,
laying on the bed
holding a marker. my feet
dangling beside his steel-toed
work boots. cold wet
kisses of ink, the clitoris
outlined then erased with his spit.

On Dysphoria

in the united states it costs twenty-two thousand dollars for shoulder reduction surgery / my shoulders were scouted by high school football coaches / who said they were made / to tackle other men /         that with the right training I could be / stronger than my brother / my shoulders ripped dresses                      in boutiques / boutique rhymes with petite on purpose / the woman who helped me pick out my first dress said my shoulders remind her / of her / brother who works on an oil rig / how everyday he is faced with the threat of death / by drowning / by a crane hook through the stomach / how everyday       I am faced with the threat of death / by men confused at what I am / by men angry they are attracted to what I am / by men angry I am not attractive enough / there is not a precise word to describe             the stares / of every person trying to solve my gender as though I am a penrose / I wear berets to cover the hair / thinning / on my scalp / I went wig shopping / and spent two hundred dollars / it is not my curls / my frizz / my hair / it sits bunched in the back of my closet / in the united states a hair transplant costs fifteen thousand dollars / I wear large sweaters to hide the pyramids that are my boobs / a lover once said they remind her of enlarged mosquito bites / another said they are the eighth wonder of the world / in the united states a breast augmentation costs twelve thousand dollars / 

Grief

I ask the pastor what’s the shape of grief?
he says, dull my child. 

grief is cramped as confession. the grate in
the box the same as

my mother’s rosacea. godlight catches
the rose window, rays

resembling the blonde wisps of her hair, 
my hair. the pastor

whose breath is ash and absinthe recites blessed
are those who mourn for

they shall be comforted. his hand circles
my back, with one pat

he leaves me on the pews. my brother says
he is finding god 

and I never felt more distant to him.
I ask him what if

the afterlife is sorted by your death? 
if I died the same

death would I reunite with our mother? 
he remains silent.

in the church I think I hear the voice of 
god. it is a child.

Carson Sandell is a trans poet from San Jose, CA. They graduated from University of California, Riverside with a B.A. in Creative Writing. They’re an MFA Student in Poetry at San Diego State University. Outside of school, they are a Poetry Reader for Split Lip Magazine and Poetry Editor at Poetry is Currency. Most nights you’ll find them curled up with a glass of wine watching a horror movie.