a dual

sometimes I’m human
and sometimes I’m not

sometimes I wear my father’s clothes -
blue boiler suit and working boots -
and sometimes my mother’s necklace,
rattling like stones underfoot

both beast and boy
and girl and alien
exist inside my thoughts, feelings

I cannot strip away each thing
and find a cogent whole
to jump in

I cannot remove my mother’s necklace.
Like the villainess of an old Italian horror film
I’m pulled by it against the mesh
of an elevator cage
and decapitated.

I cannot unzip my father’s boiler suit.
I sink in it like Houdini
writhing against his chains
as he tries to escape for a trick.