My Gender Is...

 My gender is a lost dog 

Digging through the refuse 

Along an unfamiliar city street. 

My gender is a gopher

Wearing a tweed jacket 

Hitting the snooze button 

For the fifth time. 

My gender is the soft, gentle 

Scraping sound of a hot washcloth 

Trying to scrape away the golden

Hairs that lie like grass along an arm.

My gender is the scene from that

One courtroom movie, where all

The jurors are screaming while

A condemned man sits in silence

Surrounded by people who

Want him dead. 

My gender is a thousand whirlybirds

Kicked into the air by Autumn,

Slowly spinning back down to earth. 

My gender is a word that you love

Even though you can’t remember

What it means or how it’s spelled. 

My gender is a faucet left running

Because someone told me that if

It gets too cold and the faucet isn’t running

Then everything will just freeze up

And shatter into a million pieces, 

And even though I feel like that would be

Entertaining, I leave it running anyway.