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.

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Blue Picasso

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