official transcript of the phone call with the morgue which buries my deadname
​

By Daniel Mohr

sorry i really can’t do anything
there’s no wiggle room to split
the yew tree coffin apart ‘cause
thing’s been so long in this state,
letters cramped, a moth-eaten
corpse cocooned over your lips— 
but have you considered
de-bodying your [REDACTED]
as in but you sound like a girl
as in chop off your [REDACTED]
okay, that was a bit much maybe
I know, it’s just that your voice— 
but a funeral makes £4,000 given
the ink splitting from your birth
certificate: £2,000 additionally &
have you swallowed its edges— 
as in your body synonyms with
[REDACTED]
no, sorry, no I wasn’t meant to— 
whatever you say, it’s just, well,
we need to de-entangle letters from
your white blood cells—or red ones,
who knows, de-synthesise the DNA,
de-position & de-sort & de-categorise
& de-[REDACTED]-cash-or-card— 
oh dear, the body is never free,
even decomposing can be sold &
£1429 for whichever flame consumes
the name’s hollow plastic bones &
against your tongue a last reminder:
[REDACTED].
sign here & here & here.
how could your body ever—I mean,
so [REDACTED] of you,
so very [REDACTED].

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Daniel Mohr (he/him) is a queer poet and fiction writer, based in Germany. His work has appeared in Canthius, CV2, carte blanche, Nonbinary Review, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. He mostly writes when it’s dark or when it’s snowing—preferably both.