She says the future is visible
at the edge of things,
the spaces between,
doorways and twilight,
launch and destination.
In his truck, hot to distraction,
feet splaying the dash,
she dreams of storms dragging
themselves sopping across the prairie:
a baby born in a field like an ear of corn,
the ache of a woman's wrists.
She looks where his hand meets
the wheel and blushes--
that pure burning there.
History is no more than a syllable
in a bottle, blue glass, a poem
written on the underside of a cup,
the thread from which she dangles.
Her lipstick grows soft in the cave
of her pocket and she knows it's coming,
this great desire, her body broken
like the spine of a book. Her mother
can smell it on her, persimmons
and vanilla, it tangles in her hair.
She says she will die in water,
learns to fear rivers and dishpans,
empty bathtubs and bottomless wells,
bides her time, slipping with him
beneath the quarry like a fish,
the blackness shimmering.
She is blood spilling,
witchcraft and needles,
this fold in the map
of her body meant for
nothing if not rending.
Kristy Bowen's work has appeared in various publications, including, most recently, Stirring, Verse Libre Quarterly, and Pierian Springs. Her chapbook, The Archaeologist's Daughter, is due out in Spring 2004 from Moon Journal Press.
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