Gaia Sings the Body Electric
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My body trans//forms.
Forms, trans//modify, my
body forms my trans//lated
form, my body trans//forms.
Chromatic, glistening oil
dries from my glittering pit.
Where once there was a branch,
became an arm—
where once there was an arm,
R//G//B cordwire electricity
bursts from my shoulder.
Encased in latex, nylon
exo-skeleton form, my
body trans//mogrify, my
body trans//form, my
body morphs from the
extension of history to
the gaunt future.
Vast expanse of
endless inquiries.
Plastic smooth plaster smooths
all of my ripples and fills
in my negative space—I
pump my trans//formed
body full of plastics.
When I breed I bleed oil
and slicken the thick layer of metalchroma
rust will never select me,
I will pave over the rough earth
of my sacrum.
And city lights set up in lines
along my limbs.
Jie Venus Cohen is a mixed, intersex writer whose work has been recognized in Strange Horizons, The Minnesota Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Ex-Puritan, Singapore Unbound, Academy of American Poets, and others. Their speculative poem “THE FUTURE” received a Best of the Net award in 2023. Their poem “FAIRY-CHERRY” was selected as the winner of the 2024 Singapore Unbound Poetry Prize.
