A postmortem story or how archaeologists might fail me

Abstract

A postmortem story or how archaeologists might fail me after Lourival Bezerra de Sá after Lady Cao Kay Ulanday Barrett (bio) More than my femurs will be found sprouting below a lilac bush,my left front tooth a wavy millimeter, my pelvic bone an avenuein U turn. Archaeologists might find body a like mine, one likeburnt clay pots, cheekbones compressed by loam. My tibialong as a brittle bow that once kicked up to the wind.To argue about my bone-dust before I’m actually dead. To plot silhouette of my afterlife like video game. Do you thinka schematic of a human is only calcium? Did you know transpeople recognize more than marrow? Did you know this stateor documents could never jot down my plot twists? Eighty policies introduced in law say trans children can’tplay sports, can’t mouth truths to doctors. Congress wantsbadly to get between our legs, to dictate a child how to run andwhat indicates triumph. So obsessed by wonder bread livesto harangue young and forecast the dead. Sacrum and tailbone are not some confetti. Trans people onReddit make psalm on keyboards, obliterate possible pencilsfrom our bones. One said he’d rather swallow flames,his sinew turned soot so archaeologists don’t fumble pronounseven after we’ve become our own blossoms full of blood. I do not blame them. When I’m dead, maybe I’ll drift tothe sea. My shoulder blade blushed with anemone, mycollarbone filaments swerved on rising tide by some bashfullovers at sunset. A constellation of quiet carrion nestled inthe blushing shimmer of a wave. [End Page 309] One will say to the other: Hey, do you see that sky?I made that for you and by then we will all know that transis in everything, so continuous. It’s silly to wage our wakes at top speed. Trans peoplehave always been interstellar, becoming upturned cometswhen banished in outpatient psych wards, familyreunions, a junior high history book. Of course this is all speculation; lament for a futureonly maybe habitable. As this hot hot earth is turned intoa corporation, fahrenheit slaughters bird lungs at borderwalls, deer droughts next to your patrol brick, but theconcern, hundreds of years after I’m long gone—if I’m only male or female? Let’s be honest you aren’t ready for the future. Won’thave energy to dream up my bones. You can hardlyeven pronounce the piss of me in the next stall. [End Page 310] Kay Ulanday Barrett Named one of “9 Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Writers You Should Know” by Vogue, Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry by Foundation for Contemporary Arts, winner of a 2022 Tin House Next Book Residency, and a recipient of a 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020), received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award from the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They can be reached at info@kaybarrett.net. Copyright © 2023 Kay Ulanday Barrett