DEED

Greathouse follows up Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award winner, with another impressive collection focusing on the nature of desire. Recalling being “called a boy-thing with a girlish // manner, when I meant to be a girl / or girl-ish,” greathouse goes on to cite all the places trans people like her are prohibited (“bathrooms & airplanes, churches & young adult literature”); they explain, “I just wanted you / to future me.” The poems are frank and luscious in describing the many ways having sex satisfies them. And also how it doesn’t; greathouse, who has seizures (“the body overtaken by itself”), also finds intercourse difficult (“No study has yet considered girls like us / human enough to bother with our pain”). Yet the poems radiate a sort of joyous physicality, an appreciation of the body, and images of bonding prevail (“it’s how I hold another / body that gives mine its worth”). greathouse’s main tool, aside from rich language, is a sophisticated plunge into the etymology of words they use, showing how understanding their roots helps us understand what they describe.