Tryst Poetry by Kristy Bowen 

Rapunzel

  In your sixteenth June,
  Like a barbed hook,
  You are waiting for someone
  To come upon you
  Quiet and accidental
  As the rain.

  You are waiting for summer
  The longest day, like a woman
  Waits for a train, in heels and hat
  Patient, urgent,
  Pushing your bones against it
  Spreading like wildflowers in the ditch.

  You are waiting for moonlight,
  Craving the grave like water,
  The maiden in the tower,
  Dark and spare, bewitched,
  The lunatic's depraved daughter
  With her sin-driven hair
  Vain and pale as breath.

  You watch the night
  Like an augury, your mirror
  The brackish water in your bowl
  Your desire running red and thin
  Flowing like ribbons through your veins.

  For who says you cannot want
  In fairytales, your skin blue
  In the dim light,
  Pure as ice but never fire,
  Your body, your mind
  Like a closed room
  Waiting for someone to unlock it.

© 2002 Kristy Bowen


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Blue Picasso

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