The Promised Land

I spend Friday with eight hours in the ER
the intake nurse’s hands examining my pelvis
me wondering if I should’ve packed after all
Soon I learn the folks here are quite fine
with my being small they
_______just don’t understand how
a healthy young man like [me]
_______My love winking at me
Loopy from the fever I only find this surreal

Then a nurse carting me into an exam room
closing the door______His hands a temple
I almost laugh when he asks if I’m cis
Instead I claim trans like it’s my birthplace
Like we’re a land I honor

Late now and the ward has quieted
Still I can’t sleep______this IV in my arm
the day stuck on my brow
I’m here because it’s complicated
or not_______I avoided the doctor
long enough to make a minor issue vicious

______The doctor
testing me today
told me she’s baffled__I’m a rarity
I say kidneys ought to be fairly usual
but I know she means something else
She brings in another doctor
then another
asks me again if I may be pregnant
This whiplash_-passing then not
has me dizzy so I flip_-through channels
I’m not accustomed to anymore
and commercials_____what relics
Nauseous even from the screen’s change
I settle on something direct
Naked & Afraid
Why yes I am_______-Thank you for asking
I drift into and_______out of sleep
wake to a voice that feels like family

I’m blown away by____how soon tears come
A transwoman on this show and I realize
I haven’t cried since the fevers began
Before me____she gathers water
builds a shelter______-strings her bow
______-and here I lay
alone but for her glow
I watch like it’s not reality television
sip on my juice smiling
wet-faced and relieved just to see
another body of us at home in the land