Siren
Electrophobia

                                fear of electricity

After we’ve lined the shoes

beneath the bed, we fashion

 

a makeshift radio, duct taped,

out of Dixie cups. Splinters

 

in the palms of my hands, current

in the baseboards. A woman sheds

 

her clothes in the kitchen and I

have pinned a carnation to my chest,

 

to all the blue dresses lilting on the lawn

in that twilight, the streetlights flickering.

 

A scar where you wrote it in my book,

the blood part.  Where I’m rusted.  Borrowed. 

 

 

 

Arithmaphobia

                        fear of numbers

 

Ten o'clock and I'm lit,

livid with gin, in love with

 

the alchemist and his cheekbones.

His wife that drops like a coin

 

into my glass.  Her dizzy fizz.

Ten and I'm counting pencils

 

in the space between the

bed and the floor. Where I live

 

on licorice,  the whirl

of ballerinas swooning on vinyl.

 

Where I live on the palest underside

of their wrists, the 1/2 beat,

 

the port de bras. Where

I've chewed all the dark out

 

with my crooked mouth,

my gleaming arc.

 

 

 

Hydrophobia

                        fear of water

 

While we sleep, the river

takes the house like a thief,

 

like a woman with a mad scene,

a bad streak. Smashing

 

all the windows and leaving

bluegill in the sink.

 

I gutter every light, wring

the dark from my dress,

 

heavy with lures and the

tiniest blue snails.

 

Every syllable rescued

from the dank cellar of my throat.

 

Something ruined and bone

white as the bottom of boats.

 

Virulent as the thickening

ditches.  Every girl gone

 

crooked with summer. 

With the cattails and terrible light.

 

 

 

Dysticaphobia

                        fear of accidents

 

When it comes for us, even the basins

are filled with honey, with laudanum,

the low hum of pink satin.

 

In the pantry, we're sick with it,

our limbs thick with sawdust,

moths rattling the screen where

the night gets in.

 

Just yesterday, three girls fell

from a tree, bruised and ruined.

A commotion of hands at the wreck

of their dresses unfurling in the dirt.

 

We're fevered, fervent.

 

Even the latched things unlatched

and prone to disaster.

 

Kristy Bowen’s work has appeared most recently in Caffeine Destiny, Backwards City Review, Alice Blue, and 42Opus.  She is the author of two forthcoming bookprojects, the fever almanac (Ghost Road Press, 2006) and feign (New Michigan Press, 2007).  She lives in Chicago, where she edits the online ‘zine wicked alice, runs dancing girl press, and dabbles in book/text collage art.  More of her work can be found at www.kristybowen.net.