havoc
Kristy Bowen
dancing girl press, 2011
$7.00
limited edition of 100
A writer and visual artist, Kristy Bowen is the author of several book, chapbook, and zine projects. Her third full-length collection, girl show, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2013. She lives in Chicago, where she runs dancing girl press & studio, an indie press and design studio.
what monster
In the end, I told one lie, then another.
It was easy, the babies kept hatching
but the surface resisted.
In the backyard, in the breakfront.
I chewed the hearts from paper dolls one by one.
Took one, then another by their slender throats,
rendered them useless, their pretty napes sodden in my mouth.
All that sugar beneath skin. We spent hours watching women
draped over midcentury chairs like sweaters. It was my ailment,
my misgiving. Counting rabbits and ranunculus.
I took a lot of baths to stop the blood.
I read one magazine then another.
My heart was a burnt out movie theatre, a darkened drugstore
or some other poetic thing, ridiculous and aimless as wings.
I forgot about the war while rearranging the plates.
We wanted to understand what science was, that big blue
hope bursting through our door.
I begged you to stop, but you never did.
I took one train, then another.
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