If we think of it as a door, the room it opens                  into is a walk-in closet with dresses and suits.There are ways of cutting things out: a small knife,                  a surgery behind a curtain, then the heal.One imagines balance as a kind of inaction,                  getting things to settle and leaving them. And it is,for a while—my mother asks about my boyfriend                  but I don’t tell her about my floral dresses.For Halloween I went as an icon, panty hose                  already with a run in it, tip of bowler, bustier,and the highest heels I’ve ever seen. Turning                  my ankle I couldn’t walk, even barefoot afterward.Cause: queerness. Effect: a subtle rippling                  then a stillness. I would wipe the slate cleanbut the slate is a cheese grater—I would clean the slate                  like the whiteboard in class: Your assignmentis to be everything. Simple enough really, expectation                  being only the act of doing the thing one does.I think we will know how much a word weighs                  someday, science being what it is—featherto the heart’s red brick, quiet pillars, scale.