"Girl" by Eve Alexandra

Girl

Be careful if you take this flower into your house. The

peony has a thousand lips. It is pink and white like the lady’s

skirt and smells sharp and sweet as cinnamon. There are a

thousand ants living inside but you will only see one or two at

a time. I am like that down there--pink and busy inside. The

dark is a bolt of cloth, crushed and blue, and I unfurl against it.

If you lie down on the floor of the closet the hems of silk will

lick you. My own gown is thin as the skin of dried grass so I

can see the ants dancing down there. The night has big paws.

I imagine the wool of the bears, the cloth of monkeys. the night

smells like vetiver and cedar. His mouth is cool with mint and

warm with rum, and I am not afraid as he rubs his wool against

me. I saw the bear dancing at the circus when I was small. He

was wearing a green felt cap with gold bric-a-brac and kept by

a thin wire thread. My brother bought me a sucker for the train

ride home, and I am like that now on the inside, burning soft

with lemon. What fruit do you like best? I like tangerines.

And the night leaves me these. A small paper bag on the bedside

table. The wrought iron and roses like an altar. I am glowing now.

My teeth are stitching kisses to my fist. I go to the river. My legs

are frogs legs. Tiny wands, see how they glisten. A thousand fish

swim through me. I am a boat now. I know no anchor. My hair

unfurls, copper and cinnamon. Look how it opens, beautiful world.


(Eve Alexandra from The Drowned Girl, 2003 Kent State University Press)