Kristen Orser


from E AT I


                     I got these wounds
                     (!)
                               This eye:       I:


                               Oracles:
                               So much poppycock.

                                                                            Full of purple—you

                                         have that extremely rare quality.

                                                   : Fishermen
                                                   : Little fishes
                                                   : A hope




           And dress up the boys

                                                                                                          throw them off

                                                                                                          a mirror.




(Tomorrow
(and someone else))    :    I held
                                                   the boy. (What) I wanted:
                                                                                                         : Anyone.

                                                                                                (?)     Do you know,

                                                   I was delighted.
                                                   As soon as we

                                                                : Unwrapped
                                                                : Screamed

                                                                : Became panicky: Torn



                                                                                          :      Anything is always a bore
                                                                                                 with one young girl
                                                                                                 for a long time.



(My) skull made her scream cymbals (!) adding to the peeling wall(paper) in a thunderstorm.







                                                   We
                                                   : Lipped
                                                   : Threw ourselves
                                                   : Suddenly


                                                   throwing a green ball, two
                                                   eunuchs carried a silver chamber,


                                                   (put it in my) ear the whole way.

                                                                                           It fastened. I
                                                                                           fell over


                                                                                                     : Moon phases
                                                                                                     : Bodies
                                                                                                     : Little iron stars
                                                                                                     : All my little pleasures :




Spoons cracked the eggs. The boy’s ears

                                                                                 are missed in such a way that is deeply
                                                                                 circular.


If s(he) likes you, (s)he likes you—if she doesn’t like you, he doesn’t like you.







Look(ing)

to us like a fat goose surrounded by fish           :           A fish out
                                                                                                        of the ham.






                                                                          :      A nice name
                                                                                 round with perfumed


                     wanting, in fact, a bed.






           I’d even begun crying:           If I


                                                                                                see a bath, I’ll die.


(I was drunk too (in a most ingenious way). I began murdering (my friends))


                                                             ((You) know I’m not lying))—





When I am dead                                                                       I don’t want her to kiss me.







I kissed the apple, my little apple, the old girl too.
           But nobody

                                                                                                                         ever gets enough. (!)
(Never


                                                   : Ten million (?) You got


                                                                                 your lady, twenty
                                                                                 bedrooms. (I want







                     to be buried)). Pretend I’m dead

                                                                                                     and say something. Split





another pair in white slippers.

                                                                                                : Jupiter
                                                                                                : Poet
                                                                                                : Pimps
                                                                                                : Pretty boys
                                                                                                : My



ears, in a very nervous whisper                ::      If I can kiss this boy without his knowing it—






I’m not like you—                                             Pinching
                                                                                 investigations.


Kristen Orser's work has appeared, or is forthcoming, from If Poetry Journal, Indefinite Space, Ab Ovo, elimae, Caketrain, and elsewhere. A chapbook, Fall Awake, will be published this fall by Taiga Press, and E AT I, from which the selection above is taken, will be published by Wyrd Tree Press next year. She says that, too often, she apologizes after walking into a chair.

 
 
 
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