Disheveled rebel baby 

Yes, I was born disheveled. 

I felt precarious already, but also way precocious.  

Ready for action, said the nurses, so they say. 

A couple of years later, in the first grade, 

I was sent to the principal’s office for climbing up

the venetian blinds (those tough old heavy wooden slats) 

of my classroom. I had to stand in the corner. 

Something was going on. 

Some of it was sheer crazy baby energy, but also 

because somehow I knew that I’d been born 

with an unfair advantage, me, a little boy, 

and because of that kind of male delivery, the world 

and all the doors were ridiculously, unfairly open. 

I saw the little girls getting the short end of it all (later, 

they grew up, turned into women, and I still saw it). Well, 

fuck that, I said 

in some some sort of equivalent baby language. 

That’s not fair, I said to the principal, 

from the corner, and I’m gonna mess with it. 

And messing with it messed with my mother, a grandad, 

some of the teachers, most of the the male coaches 

and all of those gym classes and other classes from one end 

of school to the other. Jobs, and a lot more, later on. 

No matter what, I’d proceed, evermore—disheveled.

It’s not enough, I know, to change everything or maybe anything 

for all my girl and women friends, but I’ll do all I can 

to short circuit it all, stick up for my friends ... 

and fuck up my unfair advantage. 

Anyway—as women know as well or better than me—

the corner can be a real dangerous place. 

For the so-called principals in the room. 

I said, to the principal.