6 September 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 3
fret
Lets say a woman's heart
is like a windup bird.
The conservatory filled
with oranges and the cellar
disordered, unstable
with the pull of thieves
gathering outside the windows.
I've invented this: the panic,
copper tongued and shaken.
I'm dizzied, dulcet.
A thin layer of graphite
blooming beneath my skin.
And here, my sleight of hand,
my tour de force,
skirts come all undone
and tapping out code beneath
the dressing table. I am
impossibly lovely, impossibly
fixed against the horizon.
Any attempt at flight
ruining all the furniture.
About the author:
Kristy Bowen's work has appeared recently in Rhino, Cranky, and Diagram, and is forthcoming in Swink and Columbia Poetry Review. She lives in Chicago, where she edits the online zine wicked alice and runs dancing girl press, which publishes chapbooks by women authors. She is the author of two forthcoming collections, the fever almanac (Ghost Road Press, 2006) and feign (New Michigan Press, 2007).
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Kristy Bowen at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 6, No. 3, where "fret" ran on September 6, 2006. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
