Lilith Goes Trans

Elizabeth Zelvin: Lilith Goes Trans

LILITH GOES TRANS

Elizabeth Zelvin

I don't want to be a woman any more

I've had enough of dancing backward

on heels sharp enough to pierce parquet

as Adam, tuxed and Old Spiced for the ball

grips my butt with jealous fingers

eyes fixed on my décolletage

and mansplains the night away

Adam's groupies will be glad I'm gone

so will the ladies who lunch

competitive yeshiva bochers

demonize me anyway

the feminists will lose an archetype

the original Vilde Chaya

Eve says she'll miss the way we laughed

the girl talk in the Ladies

how we borrowed one another's clothes

and did each other's hair

she's afraid that I'll transition into One of Them

she says We won't be sisters any more

Elizabeth Zelvin is the author of two books of poetry, I Am the Daughter (1981), and Gifts and Secrets (1999), and recipient of a CAPS Award for Poetry from the New York State Council on the Arts. A third volume, The Old Lady Shows Her Mettle, is on the way. During the Second Wave of the women’s movement, her work was widely published in feminist and Jewish women’s journals. Her poems currently appear in Yellow Mama and other journals. Liz has also published seven novels and more than sixty short stories, including the Bruce Kohler Mysteries and the Mendoza Family Saga.

KJ Hannah Greenberg is eclectic. She’s played oboe, participated in martial arts, learned basket weaving, and studied Middle Eastern dancing. What’s more, she’s a certified herbalist, and an AP College Board-authorized teacher of calculus.

Her creative efforts have been nominated once for The Best of the Net in poetry, once for The Best of the Net in art, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for poetry, once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million Writers Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty-five books published and has served as an editor for several literary journals.

Check out her latest short fiction collection, An Orbit of Chairs:

https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Chairs-KJ-Hannah-Greenberg/dp/B0CWMMM73T

Within its pages are two tales originally published at Yellow Mama: "Alive Another Day" and "Light Notes."

Channie's new art book, Life's Colors, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGCTHJ6Z, just launched (hit "read sample" button). It contains images originally published by Yellow Mama.