The Balanced Act of Introduction

His preferred pronoun

is anything but they.

He says that he’s happy with he  right now

because he’s in boy mode today.

He thinks his feet are far too small

(he’s wearing purple Converse).

He says without his thick-rimmed specs

he’s basically blind.

I try them on, worried the dimensions of my head

will stretch the legs too far.

I tell him looking through them

is like being boxed with one of Bacon’s Popes.

I talk to him about the time

I was the Other Woman (how I found

that I could not connive in gaslighting by proxy),

and worry that I’m treating this as interview, am wittering.

He tells me he weighs six and a half stone.

I try to work out how many of him

would fit into a single me,  and give up.

Maths has never been my strong suit.