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Poem
by Kristy Odelius


Dislocation Lesson

3.

Kate and Adrian enter
like Hedda Gabler
and the real inspector
hound. The room is a dry
and third-term pregnancy.
The daughters of albion
refuse to leave though
their lamentations fall
in vain on glittering
multiply pierced ears.

I am my sweet red ring.
I am my mother’s cystitis.
I am hanging from the oak
tree window, the very small
boy I used to be looking in.

Faces like thumbnails
dream of text messages.
It’s late morning.
Sometimes there is sun.
Today there’s a note
in my cerulean pocket.
It says “heartbreak.”

Dislocation Lesson

V.

Western eyes coincide
over a slumped trash
bag, slapdash and blue.
Promiscuous barbeques,
backyard hibiscus burning
like red beans, sinking
through leaves.

In the damp street
Bossa Nova lifts her
hem, shifts Our
Lady of Mercy past
the horizon's dead
orange cheekbone.

Blueprints strewn
on the sofa link
our foreheads with
obscure legends,
wild and wordless.
We want to eat
a white white
cake, to sleep
in the furnace with
June’s mouth around us.

Dislocation Lesson

2.

A toy is a doorway
A boy is foraging
through rain, muddy
vans in his hands
Saturnia is boring
Tokyo threadbare
A sister thinks citrus
and wonders aloud why

Toys have faces
Toys have names
The violence is
The violence was
indefinite as blue

Tommy bahama shirt, blue
Enamel bracelet, aquamarine blue
Linen sham, ocean blue
Devil-girl figure, demon blue

I made mistakes
they are displayed
deep as toys
on the blue credenza