Trans bodies & a thousand welcomes for hound Cú Chulainn

by Ashton Palmer

Everything is brazen & 

                                             glorious in the teeth of that hound. 

       Blisters are forming in us & we are one & we are entirety. Bone marrow 

                    scrapes together like a naked hug –bones are universal—

 human & animal, man & woman, man & trans-bodies

                    together. 


  ii.


I’m in between names at the moment. A nightmare, Tuesday, 5 am—

a wolfhound is bearing a jaw

                                                   dripping wetness, holding me into 

the trial of its tongue; I am trapped in my mum’s bedroom window;  

      I am trapped in a throat laced with mirrors— 

A reflection; in Ireland my bodies fur grows

                                                            White. I take my sword &

rest it on the bathroom mirror, far from a predator who opens its jaw so wide

           It is not scared to breathe in the ashes of a dying home;

more like a deer who watches death’s condensation

& rests its antlers on the glass

                                                        so that when the car revs its engine, the hound

at the gates of its king, the headlights look like burning stars.

 

iii.


                           Cú Chulainn endured

& killed that binding hound, but I stay within myself

                   when I hear the giggled growls of students in the hallways, 

boys at the corner shop; 

         & Dad when I’ll maybe tell him.


iv.


He is she & I am nothing in these people— 

     I am the meat to a dog’s full stomach. 

In stories, we tell kids at open fires, not trans kids, of course, to defeat the jaw

that blocks your path— but I am in this jaw: the blockage is within me, 

         I am in the womb of my dysphoria, the hound.

     Céad Mile Fáilte—

A hundred thousand welcomes, to some.


v.


Like Cú Chulainn, born Sétanta, 

           I’m in between names at the moment

I will remorse her & I will lose her,  but still feast in rebirth—

like a speckled wood, born again

                         to dance in the beauty

they kept cocooned.


vi.


                            Let me be chained in the life you never finished, 

living on in our Irish mouths:

                                                    Cú Chulainn— Hound Killer.

Ashton Palmer is a sixteen-year-old, transgender writer from Northern Ireland. His favourite poets include Ocean Vuong, Richard Siken, Fiona Benson and Danez Smith. He has been previously published in issue 2 of 'Catheartic Magazine' and 'Adolescence Magazine's' autumn mini-mag. He also has one upcoming publication in issue one of 'The Encephalon Journal.' His experiences with gender dysphoria has been a major influence in his writing - seeping into the cracks of his poetry, as it does in his daily life, which influenced him to turn the Irish folktale 'the hound of Culann' into his journey of self-acceptance. This idea came to him in a nightmare, that featured a large wolfhound.