This
light,
it
swallows her,
a
calligraphy of insistence
inscribed
on her limbs.
She
learns what to leave,
what
to take away,
this
house,
its
tyranny of calypsos,
its
carnivorous tremor.
Last
night, among the wreckage
of
dinner, the strewn plates,
tipped
cups, the trees leafless
in
the yard, she dragged
a
butter knife over
the
bluish skin of her thigh,
pale
syllables gathering
at
the back of her throat.
Her
father still rages,
in
some other dream,
rips
the pages from books,
the
clothes from hangers in rooms
where
her mother dances,
heels
clicking across hardwood floors,
the
red twirl and flush of her skirt.
Somewhere,
the ghost
of
a child, lank haired,
grey-eyed,
pulls her fingers
from
the thin thread
of
light slipping beneath
a
closet door.
This
dark,
it
remembers her name.
Kristy
Bowen's work has appeared in a number of publications, including Small
Spiral
Notebook and Stirring.
She lives and writes in Chicago, where she edits the
online journal Wicked Alice.
Her chapbook, The Archaeologist's
Daughter, is forthcoming in spring 2004 from Moon Journal Press.
This fall she began coursework
towards her MFA in Poetry at Columbia College, and was recently nominated
for a Pushcart Prize.
Magazine