Three Poems

 

 

by Kristy Bowen

 

 

 

in which a girl is transformed into a goldfinch

 

 

She starts by spelling her name

backwards and hiding beneath

 

the bed.  On the carousel,

the women in coats brush

 

against her heat, her animal smell. 

The men forcing their fingers

 

against her nape to smooth the soft down.

It’s terrifying: no song, no wings,

 

feathers in the clawfoot tub. 

When she steps from beneath the curtain,

 

a shiver, a hiss like an open bottle.

Then a million splinters, glinting in the air.

 

 

 

 

still-life with broken door

 

 

Before the part with the mercury,

the fences dark as nails, you could

see all the way to Wyoming.  Could

see all the way into girls gone soft

 

and round about the hips.  A man

could lose an arm like that, to lightning,

to machines.  Mile after mile of busted

lunchboxes glinting in the sun.

 

Before the bad water, before the burning,

we opened our windows each night,

wandered milky and loose

as hinges.  Misplaced watches

 

and old shoes, mile after mile

of rusted Fords.  Every woman

gone blue round the mouth,

gone black round the edges.

 

 

 

 

dead girl's love song

 

 

In the blue car, her name

is rum-sweet, etched

 

in the dark architecture

of backseats.  Elizabeth

 

of cat tails and ric-rac.

Of blue dresses and burnt

 

out houses.  Her body crowded

with radios and a scar beneath

 

the ribs where the song

slips out.  Pretty as sin. 

 

Pretty as a picture of a picture

of a girl.  In the drugstore

 

glow, fingering buttons,

her limbs are cluttered, clumsy.