Nino McQuown | Ship of Theseus | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Nino McQuown (they/he) is a trans and transdisciplinary artist from Baltimore, Maryland, where they put on puppet shows, teach gardening, and make a podcast called Queers at the End of the World. They've published poems, essays, and comics with Foglifter, Electric Literature, Barrelhouse, SAND, and others. They're one of Foglifter's 2026 Pushcart nominees in creative nonfiction for their essay "New Crush." Their book-length epic, Cruise Ship, is forthcoming in 2027 with Word Works Press.

Nino McQuown's Website

Also by Nino McQuown: Horse of Seasons I Ask the Xenomorph Queen: Do I Want My Womb? Two Pieces

June 3, 2026

Nino McQuown

Ship of Theseus

Sometimes, she says, it just happens to you. A gift from wherever gifts come from. A tooth growing out of your whole grown gum, next in line bone for making mush with, a body. I could sleep for days. I’d have new cells for you, or, let’s be honest, I’m their owner. When I knew your name, I knew it long enough to close it in a little blastocyst, see it divide. Out loud I must have said something incredibly stupid despite chance after chance to distinguish myself. Instead I am continually forgiven. Let’s be clear. I was the owner of all these apologies and I was also the priest in this confessional. I said: Hail! and: Full of grace. And I believed in my own fundamental goodness even after that time I asked a jail-broke, homesick ex-communicant if she’d been grateful for the paper in her cell. I think I said, “at least.” I who can’t go for half a day without your gaze. Inside my pink ear hole’s a torture factory inherited on my mother’s side, creative, innovative, efficient, optimized, precise, an elite rail and also handsome, I’ve got everything I need almost to be this cannibal. I’m born for. It’s a gift, or was. I’ve been asleep a lot since then. Maybe I’m different now. But isn’t it that every egg was in there, mother before mother at her birth. Forever’s long enough to build a nest in and return to it each Spring. Return to me and my remaining millions. Like a baby I just wanted you to touch them, hand them back.