11 March 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 1

Braid

on chronology's wrist


                        sits this gaudy minute


            fiddled like a clasp—


                                    it's the soap again


slipping out the window


                        pigeon-holed an antonym


            of clean; what do you


                                    cling to the way the wet


clotheslines hope for; such


                        soft perches scoped out


            on another body;


                                    a towel white enough


to blizzard; what turns


                        a massacre into a mass acre sulking


            with silt; shag carpet remedies


                                    easily what needs obscured—


knees purge standing


                        and thin to kneel:


            forgive the greed I build


                                    in my mouth


—you're coming on permanent,


                        like strong; whose hair wrote


            the history of combs


                                    documented behind


a plus parading


                        as a crucifix stud, pinned


            —a private altar


                                    skin inherits

About the author:

Kristi Maxwell's poems have recently appeared in Spinning Jenny, No Tell Motel, and Denver Quarterly. She currently teaches a workshop and seminar entitled "Poetics of Relentlessness" at Casa Libre en la Solana in Tucson.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Kristi Maxwell at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 6, No. 1, where "Braid" ran on March 11, 2006. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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