11 March 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 1

Braid

by KRISTI MAXWELL

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