Two Bodies in Georgia, 1986
Your mother said this girl’s
got the devil on her thick as frosting and you
just grinned. Held my stockings in your fist.
It was the year of your pregnant cat,
dripping from every rung of the ladder, belly rolling
like a shiny fruit. Good thing we can’t
knock you up, you joked, but I swear I was
knocked somewhere. July chased us
into the hayloft, barn boiling around us,
swimming stiff in our clean underwear.
Before I peeled the stockings away they melted
under my skirt, threatening to evaporate.
You could have been an ash tree
with your thin white legs, knees precisely stained
in pale blue circles from kneeling down
in dirty straw. The kittens were born.
Five lived. We crushed them against our chests
and declawed them, their mewls dusted
white with summer flour. They learned
to bite from their mother, who closed her teeth
over the napes of their necks to carry them.
By the first frost they sunk their teeth
into their first birds, the pearly bodies of doves,
carried them to the veranda like
their own babies. All dead. We picked up
each body, stood on a stage flush with their kills.
Don’t bury me in a box, said one girl
to another. I felt the sweat and air and skin
lift from me, light smearing us, bottles of milk
and beer dancing on your immaculate
breath. Our fists hung loose and full of feathers,
all those bleached birds smooth as babies
and faceless as trees.
Confession in Blood and Gold Paint
I lost whole days where the summer gave me
black eyes, thick gaps, amnesiac. I forget
where I was the night of June twenty-fifth, the fog
pushing my body, the box of twelve red cherries.
I’m telling you all I know. I recall washing pantyhose
out of my hair, the muscles moving underneath
my shoulders to taste the bones. Back then, things
were always bleeding, whether or not anyone
was paying attention. Back then, a girl could walk
into a corner store, smash all the windows,
take nothing. Where did the jawbone come from?
The molars? What is a river when it soaks up
its stones? I remember drawing circles in the dirt,
mountains grew out of them. There was a dream
I once had about doing the Luminol test, where
the floor lit up like a carpet from heaven, all blue.
We were freckled with marrow and light. And then
the drill of an electric screwdriver, the incisors,
a body caked in gold. Platinum, parsnip red. Cross
my heart, I’m telling you all I know, I’m saying
I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve lost someone,
somehow. Won’t you please stop here, while we
are only dirty from the neck up? Finally a girl
walks into a box of film, emerges glowing.
Your mother said this girl’s
got the devil on her thick as frosting and you
just grinned. Held my stockings in your fist.
It was the year of your pregnant cat,
dripping from every rung of the ladder, belly rolling
like a shiny fruit. Good thing we can’t
knock you up, you joked, but I swear I was
knocked somewhere. July chased us
into the hayloft, barn boiling around us,
swimming stiff in our clean underwear.
Before I peeled the stockings away they melted
under my skirt, threatening to evaporate.
You could have been an ash tree
with your thin white legs, knees precisely stained
in pale blue circles from kneeling down
in dirty straw. The kittens were born.
Five lived. We crushed them against our chests
and declawed them, their mewls dusted
white with summer flour. They learned
to bite from their mother, who closed her teeth
over the napes of their necks to carry them.
By the first frost they sunk their teeth
into their first birds, the pearly bodies of doves,
carried them to the veranda like
their own babies. All dead. We picked up
each body, stood on a stage flush with their kills.
Don’t bury me in a box, said one girl
to another. I felt the sweat and air and skin
lift from me, light smearing us, bottles of milk
and beer dancing on your immaculate
breath. Our fists hung loose and full of feathers,
all those bleached birds smooth as babies
and faceless as trees.
Confession in Blood and Gold Paint
I lost whole days where the summer gave me
black eyes, thick gaps, amnesiac. I forget
where I was the night of June twenty-fifth, the fog
pushing my body, the box of twelve red cherries.
I’m telling you all I know. I recall washing pantyhose
out of my hair, the muscles moving underneath
my shoulders to taste the bones. Back then, things
were always bleeding, whether or not anyone
was paying attention. Back then, a girl could walk
into a corner store, smash all the windows,
take nothing. Where did the jawbone come from?
The molars? What is a river when it soaks up
its stones? I remember drawing circles in the dirt,
mountains grew out of them. There was a dream
I once had about doing the Luminol test, where
the floor lit up like a carpet from heaven, all blue.
We were freckled with marrow and light. And then
the drill of an electric screwdriver, the incisors,
a body caked in gold. Platinum, parsnip red. Cross
my heart, I’m telling you all I know, I’m saying
I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve lost someone,
somehow. Won’t you please stop here, while we
are only dirty from the neck up? Finally a girl
walks into a box of film, emerges glowing.
Julia Falkner is an avid note-taker and writer from Louisville, Colorado. She also lives and works at Smith College, where she studies neuroscience and poetry. Her writing has been commended by the National Student Poets Program, the YoungArts foundation, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.