Don't think that I regret it -- the flat chest,
the empty hollow where my womb had been,
the stubble on my upper lip and jaw.
If transformation is a mortal sin,
then damn the whole world. Damn the changing seasons.
Damn dread Persephone, who reigns below.
Damn Bacchus, he who crushes grapes to wine
and pours it down ecstatic women's throats.
I deny none of it. Yet as the moon
waxes and wanes, pulling the wine-dark sea
from tide to tide, so I return, my flesh
assuming its old mold unhurriedly.
On the horizon, ships return to port
and in the sky a flock of birds fly north.