From Dusie

SYSTEMS

On Thursday, I wear a red ribbon around my throat and am capable of the most serious damage. Wash my hair with beer and make paperclip chains while he fucks someone else. A Katherine, whose name means torture. Who hangs out in wine bars and yoga studios and calls at 3am. Her syllables clicking like a bicycle tire, a pack of cards.

Arielle, whose name means lion of god, says to write messy poems. You know you’re there when the poem really makes you worry. I worry over car wrecks and falling in the shower. Crying on buses and wearing bad shoes. I try to write a poem I wouldn’t want to sleep with. Would kick to the curb, wrap my thumbs around her slender neck and snap. This one’s still babied, blinking, wondering if it wants to be a skirt or a tire iron. Licking the perimeter of opened envelopes for a tiny bit of sweet.

My nouns go awry every time I stop paying attention. Fall pretty like dimes on the sidewalk. My friend Melissa, whose name means bee-like, has a theory about systems. For every change in variable, the outcome shifts toward constant decay.

© Kristy Bowen 2007