Sally Albiso

CASTRATI

North Carolina castration suspects given lawyers
                 —Waynesville, North Carolina

The third sex, once prized
for their singing, their transcendent voices,
neither male nor female,
their pre-pubescent beardless bodies
turning to fat, the obedient
favored by some southern sadists
charged with castrating their submissive victims,
who seek release in such domination,
in becoming something other
than what they are. What an indulgence:
to answer to a master that is not the self;
to curl like a dog at the end of a chain,
severed from the ego’s perpetual struggle,
cupped like testicles in another’s hands.

—from Rattle #27, Summer 2007