I’d give myself a pair of legs
so that I could travel to 
Santiago, Chile, 
the place of Neruda’s death
and backpack to Borges’ Buenos Aires.

If I were to turn myself into a poem,
I’d bring with me,
in my transformation,
all of the heartache,

the way my mother’s gentle body 
laid atop a pull-out couch 
next to dad’s hospital bed, nightly,
or the way my father never climbed back 
into his leather-worked saddles.

I’d bring with me 
everything I still have not allowed 
my heart to write about.

If I were to turn myself into a poem,
I’d be an erotic poem,
slithering around the neck, the fingertips,
and into the optic nerve of the reader.
They would shut their door
to safely consume me (as a poem).

If I were to turn myself into a poem, 
my format would consist of hilltops and flatlands
and it’d appeal to all five senses.
In reading the poem,
you’d pick up notes of sin and sacred sage. 

If I were to turn myself into a poem,
I would flow like the Snake River of the Pacific Northwest.
I’d move sly and easy.
The reader would close their eyes 
and put their hands on the waist of the poem,
dance and wrestle and even tongue kiss the poem. 

If I were to transform myself into a poem,
I would unlearn the language of
all white, male poets
taught to me in grade school.