kristina marie darling
3 poems
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The Spectacle
It was the night of his first performance and the audience had arrived. Each of the gentlemen, magnificent in pinstripes and a red silk tie, seemed ready to bare his teeth. And while the men tapped their feet, waiting for a grandiloquent concerto to begin, even the arched brows of the women seemed to threaten. Yet there is something inherently carnivorous about an audience, the musician thought as the lights dimmed. He struck the first chord. The ladies, gathering their long blue skirts, were the first to rise.
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The Tenor
It’s evenings like these I think he’s singing again, all diaphragm and gusto, his arms outstretched with the dark blue notes of La Bohème. Even the crystal begins to hum. Yet when the chorus starts up, crooning languidly into the greenish night, a colorless moon hangs speechless in every window. The only sound—a beveled mirror shuddering in its frame. Then the room grows still like a little bell chiming on the hour.
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Hôte l Dieu
When the dark green eaves of the opera house loomed above her, the old woman was right to be afraid. Because she had never noticed the hurricane lamps in the windows before, or the way they smoldered in the fog. And tonight, she thought, my heart will empty out like a bottle of milk and drift away… An usher waited near the door, grinning in his red velvet suit. The halls behind him were dim and twisted like a jagged harp.
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return to sawbuck 3.2
**
Kristina Marie Darling is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry and nonfiction, among them Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006), The Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006), and Night Music (BlazeVox Books, 2008). She has also written on contemporary literature for The Boston Review, The Colorado Review, New Letters, Third Coast, and other journals. Recent awards include residencies at the Prairie Center of the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center.
**
The Spectacle
It was the night of his first performance and the audience had arrived. Each of the gentlemen, magnificent in pinstripes and a red silk tie, seemed ready to bare his teeth. And while the men tapped their feet, waiting for a grandiloquent concerto to begin, even the arched brows of the women seemed to threaten. Yet there is something inherently carnivorous about an audience, the musician thought as the lights dimmed. He struck the first chord. The ladies, gathering their long blue skirts, were the first to rise.
**
The Tenor
It’s evenings like these I think he’s singing again, all diaphragm and gusto, his arms outstretched with the dark blue notes of La Bohème. Even the crystal begins to hum. Yet when the chorus starts up, crooning languidly into the greenish night, a colorless moon hangs speechless in every window. The only sound—a beveled mirror shuddering in its frame. Then the room grows still like a little bell chiming on the hour.
**
Hôte l Dieu
When the dark green eaves of the opera house loomed above her, the old woman was right to be afraid. Because she had never noticed the hurricane lamps in the windows before, or the way they smoldered in the fog. And tonight, she thought, my heart will empty out like a bottle of milk and drift away… An usher waited near the door, grinning in his red velvet suit. The halls behind him were dim and twisted like a jagged harp.
**
return to sawbuck 3.2
**
Kristina Marie Darling is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry and nonfiction, among them Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006), The Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006), and Night Music (BlazeVox Books, 2008). She has also written on contemporary literature for The Boston Review, The Colorado Review, New Letters, Third Coast, and other journals. Recent awards include residencies at the Prairie Center of the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center.
Labels: 3.2, kristina marie darling
