Thrash
Dwindle drown paper-mâché man carved of self carved of floor beds nail beds beds with saws for eyes gaping into you neighbor-bride many others-opened crevice- legged like circles around hips towards window onto her tongue- prey hand-play electric-hands drilling-nobs pillow misted in her flicker running Svensson or the meaning of barrette rabbit down on white coarse filmy tooth and raspberry eyes talking about the sloppiness of my chin in my mural I wear pinky finger banged serrated shanked stuffed in closet seven by six the decaying animals and his friends carrying muscles like fragile hap piness fire-flamed chameleon covering coverings covering ringlets knotting like cleaving of bicycle -riding, outside willow bending for- wards not from the wind but the cold touch, adults as probing, taking the crown outta my mural taking my ears outta hearing
Thrashing
Swinging kite-flier breast-mother blubber-neck
woman carved out of girl- mucker
weeds of iris covered by
pants woman carved out of my girl
I sit with house-down-the-street
tall like anglo-saxon men needling mechanical-
fingers courage-sealed in froth as yellow-light-
ning yolk
along the shingles I smell something strange
so I take her outta my pockets where she
goes to pray at night hoping no one else
is stupid enough to tell and he is that of those
tree-boy bloodied-tongued lean mother -
fuckers
that sucks the peeholes of kite-flying irises burnt-
bread rummage and money honey burying in
teal just as I head south for that train on sixth
taking me to the stairwell, taking me to the
crawling snakes where I believe the
ashes turn gray
Thrashed
And [and] just then the lightbulb twitched [ ]
I came on. This mural I make of me, glass -
round curves softening my body to become
new flowers where my teeth meet the grooves
of this life, and where we go after. I gaze past
myself. Out into the breaths, into the daring. Hand
is no hand; print. is the palm I carried names
in, other names for me. Foot is no foot;
print. Is how I walked. dreams of seeing wild
things; changing things. Black- eyed susans
cluttering the earth and pink
flamingoes pink feathers in the skies. Mary
Ellen, Tabitha, the good will praying gives you,
clotting the wounds like the tides of rolling
hay. My mural is not religious, or
believing in ghosts, it paints itself as I get naked,
to arrange dis embodied
black and blue flowers,
blurring into [what is and what is not rape]
the negative like rice into
gullies, [retna] [juvenile]
[ ]
I teach myself anatomy, all those moments I
didn’t know my body and the meaning of barrette
that murmuring place
I go to once all of this
passes
Nicole F. Kimball (she/her) is a Jewish bisexual poet from SLC, UT. Her pieces are published in Sunspot Lit, Mom Egg Review, Sky Island Journal, 12 Mile Review, or are forthcoming. She has an A.S. in Creative Writing and was the recipient of the Pat Richards Joe Beaumont Scholarship. Nicole is proudly neurodivergent, and is a submission reader for Seaglass Lit.
MAXIMUS 