8 December 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 4

Nude Girls to Pluto

I shoved naked photographs of me

into the sewer

after the breakup, to prevent


them from appearing

near adds for cello lessons

pinned in our grocery store. Though


it's true the prude

green bodice of winter corn could use

some daring rip, an exposed


nipple's pearl, and the juiced

pomegranates I'd name suitable

rivals for my lips, the puckered


money of the apple. My song went

my clothes and books and drawings

he flung into the black street bellied up


white, like squirrel under hawk,

and the dirty photos he threatened to mail

to my father, la la… We broke even


when I'd given my twenty-seven

secret positions

to the underworld, Kama Sutra


to the city's blue pipes—blue balls

to the ottoman's

jilted leather. I gave all my


nude girls to Pluto, the old

god-rock. My harem to the gutter rat's

black forgetting river.

About the author:

Anna Journey is the author of If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting (University of Georgia Press, 2009), winner of the National Poetry Series. She's currently a PhD candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Houston, where she also serves as a poetry editor for Gulf Coast.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Anna Journey at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 4, where "Nude Girls to Pluto" ran on December 8, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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