Kristy Bowen
2 poems
**
spectacle in which a woman becomes a concertina
She will wait perfumed and painted
for his hands on her, her tongue
fluent in hoopskirts, a ship in a bottle.
Impossible. Her gait slightly off,
as if she’d been spinning all night
beneath the thick tents.
Fevered, suffering
of pianos and gaslight.
Caught in the motion
of dresses pressed and folded.
Pressed and folded.
**
spectacle in which a woman becomes a heliotrope
Pain is by far the loveliest aphrodisiac,
the loveliest of distractions.
After a cup of coffee, a lime,
she tastes pennies. Is dazzled by
the angle of the trapezist’s legs
slicing the air. She fingers
the pearl buttons and calls him
out to the lawn where the moon
floats like an eye.
Mechanical where her limbs should be.
Where gears fell from her mouth
as she was licking the silk of his vest.
Her body half, then whole,
then half again. The hands all vagueness
now and increments of miles.
A flashing on the horizon.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Kristy Bowen lives in Chicago, where she edits the online lit zine wicked alice and runs dancing girl press, dedicated to publishing chapbooks by women authors. She is the author of the fever almanac (Ghost Road Press, 2006) and the recent chapbook feign (New Michigan Press, 2007), as well as at the hotel andromeda, a collaborative text/image project (w/ Lauren Levato) inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell. Her poems have appeared recently in Cranky, Backwards City Review, DIAGRAM, Caffeine Destiny, and The Tiny. Her second longer collection, in the bird museum, is forthcoming from Dusie Press in December. She recently completed her MFA in Poetry at Columbia College. Visit her website.
**
spectacle in which a woman becomes a concertina
She will wait perfumed and painted
for his hands on her, her tongue
fluent in hoopskirts, a ship in a bottle.
Impossible. Her gait slightly off,
as if she’d been spinning all night
beneath the thick tents.
Fevered, suffering
of pianos and gaslight.
Caught in the motion
of dresses pressed and folded.
Pressed and folded.
**
spectacle in which a woman becomes a heliotrope
Pain is by far the loveliest aphrodisiac,
the loveliest of distractions.
After a cup of coffee, a lime,
she tastes pennies. Is dazzled by
the angle of the trapezist’s legs
slicing the air. She fingers
the pearl buttons and calls him
out to the lawn where the moon
floats like an eye.
Mechanical where her limbs should be.
Where gears fell from her mouth
as she was licking the silk of his vest.
Her body half, then whole,
then half again. The hands all vagueness
now and increments of miles.
A flashing on the horizon.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Kristy Bowen lives in Chicago, where she edits the online lit zine wicked alice and runs dancing girl press, dedicated to publishing chapbooks by women authors. She is the author of the fever almanac (Ghost Road Press, 2006) and the recent chapbook feign (New Michigan Press, 2007), as well as at the hotel andromeda, a collaborative text/image project (w/ Lauren Levato) inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell. Her poems have appeared recently in Cranky, Backwards City Review, DIAGRAM, Caffeine Destiny, and The Tiny. Her second longer collection, in the bird museum, is forthcoming from Dusie Press in December. She recently completed her MFA in Poetry at Columbia College. Visit her website.
