Christina McNish

So harrow and empty, she felt like a string of
artificial pearls. The necklace goes trashy with that dress
and a sewn-on badge of courage.
What does it takes to lose a heart I don't have
and how much do I owe people I've never met?
The dues pile up on shoulders in a pub somewhere
in Newport Pagnell (the bird should be in college):
ask for a Guinness, you get the British Book of Smiles
teeth fall off dentures have sex, use Polident. The wankers
you'll come to know but that you won't know at all --
they'll be claiming your body parts limbs keys
kidneys and other statutory things like intimate
time, memories, receipts all in the name of the Queen.

Fake smile row of clandestine ivory take 'em out, nervous
eyes -- God, I know what you mean. Romanticizing commonday
things to your friends -- black hair, gaspers, diaries. Some day
I won't know
where all the time teeth dentures young virgin white thingies
went. Some day you'll be married to an art fag who has pegs for fangs.

Christina McNish is an amateur poet that is currently studying Popular Culture at Brock University. She is especially interested in Canadian communications, as well as English-French issues in the country.