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.
