Quiddities
by Rachael Briggs
Male and female God created them:
to each a jewel. Around her neck, a pendant:
“female”. At his wristbone, a transplendent
cufflink: “male”. And God collated them:
one man, one woman. God had fated them
to love as man to wife, as warp to woof
on a strict straight loom, their union proof
against perversion. When God plaited them
body to soul, though, God mismated them:
irregular and multicoloured jewels
not matched to breasts or beards or genitals
or hearts. When, later, God conflated them,
we could not stay as God mandated us,
however fiercely God berated us.