Gender Noncompliant Poetry & Art

Identity theft

An owl in flight holds a human skull in its talons in the upper right, with its wings extending beyond the canvas in the top middle and upper right. Below it in sepia is a small kitten walking across a huge lily pad. Above the owl, between its wings, is a beetle. Behind the owl bordering the right side of the canvas from the top to about two thirds down is a fiery red/orange stripe. This fiery red/orange background restarts behind the owl and extends from about 2 inches below the top of the canvas and 2 inches from the right side to the bottom. In the bottom left quadrant is a dark brown rocky landscape with a ceiba tree in bloom extending from the bottom middle of the image the about 1 inch below the top middle. Atop the rocky landscape, on the middle left edge, is another human skull. Above this skull in the while space above the fiery red/orange background is a burning yellow image of the sun. Extending partially across this image of the sun and into the white space towards the owl and then restarting below the owl in the white space between the two sections of fiery red/orange and above the kitten on the lily pad, is a poem that reads: You don’t get to take my identity and pretend I never had it, pretend it never existed. I will be who I am long after your petty ass rots in the ground where it belongs.
Words and collage by Guy Duke
13.5″x12″

Original available for sale at Kreative Grounds Cafe, McAllen, TX, until Nov. 15, 2025.

Available as print:
7.5″x8.5″

Purchase print ($15)