In January of 2024, Ohio became the 23rd state to pass laws banning gender affirming care for minors. When you were very small we reveled in their funky names lions' tooth witches' balls swine snout dandelion blew their seeds into the wind and wished. You were born girl now boy- morphed I see you, mischievous architect intrepid tree climber ninja warrior voracious reader At six years old you claimed yourself. When we pick dandelions hundreds of yellow shafts thin as straight pins splayed chartreuse tips orange pulsing centers the way they hunker down in dull green folds in evening mesmerize us teach us when to strut our stuff when to retreat. Reviled outcasts herbaceous flower courageous child our ancestors knew leaf, root and flower were cures for digestive ills your precursors are shamans keepers of earth's secrets. Cracker of urban sidewalks resilient flower restrictive covenants toxic sprays cannot tame you. Boisterous wonder you own yourself want to be our first trans president. Today we pick puffballs blow their seeds into a future we dream.
Jil St. Ledger-Roty is a retired criminal defense attorney and a social justice and environmental activist. She lives in the woods in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains with her dog and cat. Her work has been published in Earth’s Daughters, SKALD, The Wildness We Tend and Humana Obscura, and her manuscript “Lost and Found and Lost Again” was selected as a semi-finalist in the Henry Morgenthau First Book Contest for Poets over 70. One of her favorite things to do is have snowball fights with her 9 year old grandson.
