Poetry Staff Pick with Vlad

It was hard to pick which of Stacey's poems I liked best, but I finally fixed on this one as just one of my favorites.


Fixing My Voice
When Dr. Rosen says he can “fix my voice,” he means
he will give me shots of estrogen that will surge through
my body like electric shocks, sending the hair on my chin
and stomach running for cover. He doesn’t want me to be warm.
He doesn’t want to listen to my large truck voice
fill his office like his soy milk
bursting up from his coffee’s deep bottom.
He wants to imagine me as an affirmation.
He wants me perched upon his plastic table
with my smooth naked legs, singing hymns
in the voice of a woman who needs him
in order to recover some piece of herself
that has been swallowed by the jaws of testosterone,
opening and closing hard like the doors of angry lovers.
He doesn’t exactly know that he hates me,
the feeling is more like gender indigestion,
how the sound of my voice keeps rising
up in his throat and he can’t rid himself
of the image of my lover who stretches out
nude in the dark bed, presses her hand
above my chest saying,
“talk to me, please, talk.”


-Stacey Waite

If you want to hear more of Stacey's unique and powerful writing, please join us at Beaverdale Books on Oct. 6 at 7pm for our next reading!