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Poetry Journal |
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Gallows Girls
Karyna McGlynn Gallows Girls. Girls who will have me hanged. Girls who approach the time change with precision. Girls with gill mouths, bloodless slits, toothless cuts, narrow lips. Pedicure girls. New VW Bug girls in halcyon hues/little bud vase. Mormon girls with their terse rod smiles cracking. Girls who always say the right amount, curse without offending, are cute as piglets, remind you of someone of someone of someone. Girls with structured purses. Girls who can size up the situation and fit right in. Girls who walk the line so they are not “too:” cornrows/conservative vote, maribou collar/rootbeer, sexy pink shoes/heterosexuality, poetry/virginity Radiohead/straight teeth. I blow smoke and smoke in spite, change my mind and wave it away, worry about my exposed lesbionic nails, worry for them: ‘maybe she’s a rock climber, or...’ I go sit somewhere else, sit with my legs apart, palazzoed and pantiless, sex swimming in my scotch and soda. I laugh with my mouth wide open, eyes watering and crinkling like old wet paper. Karyna McGlynn is a writer and photographer living in Seattle. Her work has recently appeared in Plainsongs, No Exit, XConnect, The Paumanok Review & Lummox Journal. Ms. McGlynn is a four-time member of the National Poetry Slam Team and the editor of Screaming Emerson Press. She attends the creative writing program at Seattle University and teaches performance poetry at the University of Washington Experimental College. Her newest chapbook is entitled The July Poems. |