by Carrie Chappell
I skitter
through
your silver screens,
your fanfare,
my lips
gripping
straw’s
translucence.
You are
my scandal,
my tycoon.
You are
the raspy space
wherein I trample
the shy girl
scout within.
You are
the myth,
fatty-masculine
wherein I,
searching
love’s hologram,
hold out
the wrapping paper
to the light—.
Through you
and those
who looked at you
and those
who didn’t
look at you
and the ways
I found out
about you
and the way
you were
pervasive
and the way I was not
supposed to
love you
and the way
I did,
despite
your destitutions,
I am able to
scratch at
my woman’s story,
even while
belching out
this baby’s
breath—.
I ask you—
shall I
choke them
with my
decency,
nurture
nurturing,
or shall I kiss
them shut,
tremble
their thighs,
as I spread
my lines
and wide open
their wanton?
Carrie Chappell’s poetry has been published in Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Harpur Palate, and Pittsburgh Poetry Review. Her book essays have appeared in The Collagist, Diagram, FANZINE, The Iowa Review, Xavier Review, and Buried Letter Press. She currently lives in Paris.