Third Nipple Removal
She froze the violets in liquid nitrogen.
She lifted her frock, tried to place
A penny over the blinking eye.
A crash. Some variations of purple.
One of the ceramic swan planters
Let out a rusty nailed sigh. She sewed
On a swatch of keyscraped uterus.
She distributed the Vicodin. She disputed
the license allegations. She loved.
Cardigans
Good for covering up arm-holes + good for deterring degenerate bumblebees + good
for conjuring up the old country + good for an educational programmer + good for
being a good neighbor + good for hiding the pornographic nature of raspberries
+ good for the tri-syllabics + good for the spoon-shaped woman in blue ribbon +
good for keeping the burning toast from becoming the burning man + good for invoking
a friendly fraction of a phoenix + good for nothing + good for everything + good for
postmen + good for post-women + good for post-people + good for getting your brain
to tell the difference between good numbers + bad numbers + good for the fashionably
late + good for deciphering the look on your cat’s face.
Out of the Frying Pan
Four fires, some eggplants, a vague tile floor. And in this corner,
they
are spicing the
Slavic broth. A bubble-bell voice calls out from above,
“Don’t
forget to
cut off her tags!” A flash from the sharp shade of gun grey.
The
stomach
cut up into unequal pieces. They wrap it in rice paper
or cheesecloth.
The
girl patches get bathed in inorganic oils. A doctor
in a bird mask
pushes
mirror parts under the fingernails that are not quite
crisp yet. Look
sweetheart! They made you a card in the shape of a brain.
Introducing: Things
with apologies to Amy Gerstler
Introducing: airports.
White and grounded in geometry.
This is where you can run into
people you had heard
were dead (like Mr. Kozlowski).
Introducing: phosphoric acid.
It softens water and prevents metal from corroding.
Mix it with caffeine and caramel color.
Mix it with lovin’.
Introducing: zip codes.
The mercurial moods
of a papa as rolling stone
are no match
for the five-digit hypothesis.
Introducing: spider monkeys.
Pieces of overripe mangoes
poking out of their ears.
They redeemed themselves
by biting my boyfriend
on the leg, presenting me with a list
of brown horn beads,
and a way out of Panama.
Introducing: cheerleaders.
They were just giving
it away. What with their glittery
carwash signs, shouting
FREE SPIRIT!!!
Special Opps.
for my brother
He came home carrying the (c)ode
to the military’s spiral cloud machine.
I cut my lip on a hooked color red.
I stoned two bluebirds.
Kin-ling! I made you a secret white flag.
It comes with a matching carto(o)n.
Daniela Olszewska will receive her BA from Columbia College Chicago in
the
summer of 2007. She is an Editorial Assistant for Switchback Books. Her poems have
appeared in recent issues of Clemson Poetry Review, Shampoo, and La
Petite
Zine.