.................................
Effigy for the Number 13
.................................

Smooth bodied women fit into their clothes
with an uneasy grace and a fear of those
not lacking gravity and bottoms and shoes.
They are not made to think for err
they choose what hair to wear,
which stem to root.
So they never wonder whether
to break bread
or to steal and gather oats,
For their lives are scarce and their smiles
are like cloaks.
The rings in their noses
are bigger than their flush feet with two collective toes
and hands despite fingers, arms with no elbows.
The rings of their bellies are too large to show
besides as lines alongside
each hip and chest, hanging low.
Their figures are made from our glasses
and dangling dead hands,
once massive,
now small and unboned.

.................................
K. L. Sullivan Isacson
.................................

 
Copyright © K. L. Sullivan Isacson
January 1998

...two poems in this room by Brian Pinsker...
Planet Ocean: Dancing to the Fossil Record
Return to Agnieszka's Dowry Welcoming Room