house of open wounds
by Kristy Bowen
In the bedroom, I am disappearing finger
by finger, limb by limb. Reinventing the mud daubers,
the blotted tissue, installing locks on all the medicine cabinets.
All along I was waiting for the opening,
my head moon ridden and heavy lidded. I opened my hands
and produced a dove, but the love was all wrong. The fog,
the heart-shaped wreath, the fence I tore my thigh on were all in small villages
on the other side of the world where we never visit. Where the river swarmed
and seized us. I was uncurling, unfurling, following all the wrong signs.
Older men walked me home and I fell against them like a cat.
In Paris, I released a fistful of petals out a hotel window.
In other neighborhoods, it was snowing in all the wrong ways.