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My Skin, My Sanity
by Kat Duff
When I turned fifty, the only scar on my body was the thin trace of an incision on my right thumb where a doctor removed a sliver when I was nine
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a cure for ordinary fevers
by Kristy Bowen
Begin with pumice, forsythia
the roots of bulbs unsuspected til spring.
(it will take shape in the throat,
the scaffolding of ribs)
add: 1 cassia bloom, a girl unfortunate in her dress
the hair of a clairvoyant
pomegranate juice, or the swollen seeds (the acoustics of red)
a heretic's tongue, or in a pinch, rosemary
Mix well. First, we must relearn snow, dream of a box with the cosmos inside,
or a tinge of birch bark. Sew in a light blue pouch and place
beneath the bed.
Soon she will suffer of letters, of preludes,
a book open to an uncertain page.
Will dream her body is unwritten,
is a sundial at the bottom of a lake.
Unsound
by Kristy Bowen
The wrist holds impossible cruelties.
Dead pets nest in the curve of an ear,
while every heartbreak has a spot just
below the throat. Even at eleven,
car wrecks twisted the cage of my ribs.
Milk skinned and amber tongued,
I dreamt of my mother’s rubied ovaries,
my father’s golden body, their accurateness:
me and my sister, our mouths pink
and flawless as a ballerina in a box.
Surely, we rested like a dragonfly
at the tip of her spine, or a knot in the rope
of their dreams. Even now, a grandmother
summers in my sternum, while another swims
the blood stream, the heart’s gates and locks.
My ankles still turn at the slightest imbalance.
a short history of the corset
by Kristy Bowen
Note the necessity of small hands, keyholes,
a dilation of the eyes, or the haunted cabinet.
Like in dancing:
lift the torso from the hips like an egg
from an egg cup, and let the chest
lead as if being drawn forwards
by an upward pulling string.
Taken from the latin, corps,
but then all nouns are accidental,
all grammar, merely chance.
We understand
no more than a pale lick of skin
beneath bone, the sighs
of cloakrooms or lilacs.
While hardly fit for bird calling, or orchards,
the body requires correction, the borders defined.
See how easily one could slip outside of a story.
Even through a locked door, quietly.
| Kristy Bowen's work has appeared in a number of publications, including Diagram, Stirring, and Poems Niederngasse. Her most recent chapbook, belladonna, is available at her website. A three-timePushcart nominee, Bowen was recently awarded first place in The Poetry Center of Chicago's 10th Annual Juried Reading Competition. She lives in Chicago, where she edits the online journal Wicked Alice, and is the founder of Dancing Girl Press, devoted to publishing work by women poets. More of her work may be seen at: www.angelfire.com/poetry/wickedpen. |
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