A Cabin in the Forest

K Janeschek

You are allowed to grieve

            the gender you were given

even if you set it down

      on a stone or step

            on your walk home.

Entering the cabin you live in

                  whose logs

were taken from the dead trees

            on that dome

      after wildfires raced up

the slope, you imagine choking on that burning,

                  that burning air. Somehow,

from under the ashes,

      this wood. Remember you drove

for days

            through nothing but charred fields

                        and valleys, the burnt

      silhouettes of pine seared

into your journey

            here; seared into your mind’s

map of the world. Running your hands over

      the head you shaved yourself,

                        you know this body

      has come with you

                  a long way. Now, at your threshold, you shed

            clothes like skin,

setting aside the day’s labors, regaining

            a flesh you cannot navigate

                        even with every milepost you’ve singed

      into it. Yet, unclothed,

                  standing before the mirror,

you try to feel this

            your home.

K Janeschek is a nonbinary and lesbian writer originally from the Midwest. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mid-American Review, Foglifter, The Swamp Literary Magazine, Split Rock Review, Great Lakes Review, Hoxie Gorge Review, and elsewhere, and has won an AWP Intro Journals Project award in poetry as well as Hopwood awards in both poetry and nonfiction. They live in Alaska. Find them on Twitter at @KJaneschek.