|
Poetry Journal |
|
|
|
Glass, Green
Karyna McGlynn Ghost crabs click Behind memory’s scrim: Yellow tooth, old man. Fat blood tongue arcing, Who else holds whole lives In their mouth? Why does glass, green break And stick? yes buries happily Into small feet. Puff up, break open Bubble wrap, small galaxy. Say you’re heady. Remember Milk, salt, rope, man, also You count on this. About the skin’s Stranglehold: lungs, plastic, Voice, hollow pepper knocks And snake too. Rubber Or intricate needlework. Hunt Girl beats own face. Poisoned— Tilt head back, fish Grazed wrong, Corn erupts Into meal. Shaker, Tureen, set on the stomach With lime, with creamer: Snapshot. This is the release That haunted you, this is wicker— Mold cushions like where Your toe broke in six places, nail Dropping black As beetle shell found discarded Convex, like animal eye Stretched across the big marble, What, shooter? Grandfather Pulls word awkward from larynx Flicks hard off the thumb, smacks Boys from the circle, overalls Dashed in August, glass collision, ice Cream sucked from the word Free—tongue depressed, 1933 Fall from time, sky-dizzy The ground, finger in dirt, there In now, no, dry flesh Caught in fish hook, index Slipped through cold knife gill Finger, so frozen eye, so mind (Dog at throat, lock-jaw Littered across remember: Daybreak). Drop moment into list, no tack them To your doorway, tattoo Your shoulder, still they slip Warm butter from the nails You can’t remember everything Gasworks, green bottle Broken again, men For the love of god, laced Girl’s feet back together with ink, Thick black thread, dye For the love of god, fear A mother’s face, a sun-prune, Bleached tile stamped down, but still Asphalt: bottle cap mosaic, Glinting eye, pharaoh, Ejaculated tape ribbon Oil ear drum, gasoline dress Become gift. Outside, fume From a zephyr’s mouth Around pipe. Your sandals Cut, fully grown, do not Fit, years swell bone. You say: snapshot, empty mouth. Ghost crabs hang from breasts. That girl furls, feet in silver box Tape measure, rests Against a wall you wish Were your thigh. Tomorrow You’ll stand stones On your thin gray scalp, The word iris, the word shutter. Here: thumb-nuzzled Against chin, unfinished clouds Of an infant’s skull, shake Plastic rings, metal Resting, parched roots blind, and you: Ears quietly burn, torn paper, Breath, cup Invisible if not full. 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. |