They

Abstract

They Cathleen Calbert (bio) I was pretty, certain, and au courant (thought I),dusted with yellow (yes, chalk, yes, blackboard), giving my “he or she” lectures. Oh, I taught ’emall right. “He” can’t subsume “She.” MLA, baby! Also, you were straight or gay. (Bi possibly.)Male or female nonetheless. Even “trannies.” Feminist or foe. Intersectionality not on the map.Before this, Hellman’s mayo or Miracle Whip, which I preferred (I didn’t always have good taste).Bologna or cotto salami in our home. Whole milk or nothing—except this white dust slimming ladiespoured into water. Binaries weren’t false and “slippery slope” a rhetorical fallacy.Nescafe or Folgers. Cheerios or Wheaties. Phone calls tied you to one spot, so you satand listened. If you weren’t home, you missed it. For me, briefly, garter belts until the beautyof pantyhose. I know taupe was never pleasing but bare legs coupled with Spanx? This is better?I remember my mother’s talcumed girdle, [End Page 307] that plastic, bathroom smell, followed by my hipelectric blue brassiere before I set myself free. Only strippers had fake boobs, carnies tattoos,as far as I knew anyway (which wasn’t much). Now what would my lesson be? With cis, ze, hir,a plethora of genders and sexualities? Sure, “they” still sounds plural for old sticklers like us.But we were fucked up too, bud. I don’t even want to write the words we used in our youth.Let the kids try and teach us something new. [End Page 308] Cathleen Calbert Cathleen Calbert’s writing has appeared in Ms., The Nation, the New York Times, the Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the author of four books of poems: Lessons in Space, Bad Judgment, Sleeping with a Famous Poet, and The Afflicted Girls. Her awards include the 92nd Street Y Discovery Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, the Sheila Motton Book Prize, and the Mary Tucker Thorp Professorship at Rhode Island College. She can be reached at cathleen.calbert@gmail.com. Copyright © 2022 Cathleen Calbert