by Tony Schanuel
Deer-To-Fish Transition Timeline
I’m not here to interrogate you. I’m just here to ask. It’s not the same.
Do you remember when I woke in the night? I told you
about the crack of the hunter and how
I spent so many winters as a deer skull waiting
to burst. I asked you to hold me. You did.
I asked you not to mind my antlers. You didn’t
Those were gone by the spring, anyways. Splinter and slough.
Soft velvet left over. I’m tired of being a deer, I would say.
I’m tired of caring about wolves and rifles and bright orange coats.
You didn’t say anything. You just held me, minnow-shaped,
small, prickling, and flitting around your red plastic bucket.
I know I’m a prey animal. Neither of us can change that.
But I like being a fish. I like the water, how it’s
rain when it holds you. I like hearing the thunder and thinking
“quench.” I like not remembering how to drown.
Make me at home here at Sand Lake, I said, scale and smiling.
I just wish you did. I just wish that was the end of it.
Past page four hundred and twenty-one, two, three,
just red mud and swimming and spare sunlight.
Nora Hikari (she/her) is an Asian American transgender poet and artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work seeks to explore the interiority of young trans women who are coming into adulthood in the modern era. She can be found at her website, norahikari.com, on Twitter at @norahikari, and at her email norahikariwrites@gmail.com.
Tony Schanuel is an award-winning photographer and visual artist who has fused a professional background in photography, digital technology,and painting and mark making to create fine art that transcends those mediums. His work has been featured in Digital Imaging Magazine, Computer Graphic Magazine, Wild Heart Journal, St. Louis Design Magazine, and is a featured artist in Cyber Palette and Extreme Graphics, two books showcasing digital artists and their work. He has exhibited at the Florence Biennale and his art is held in private and corporate collections including the Fine Arts Museum of Houston permanent photographic collection.