Poetry by Katarina Boudreaux: Kaleidoscope, Stigmata, Hunger Knock

Three Poems

by Katarina Boudreaux

Kaleidoscope

Muscle mass to mind,
a snap, a pop –
pain a kaleidoscope dancing
rings in my mouth.

My arm is a limp jellyfish,
a useless appendage
hanging like a ripped
thread from the torso
of an otherwise
well-sewn dress.

Folly stings my eyelids.

I could have been a
trapeze artist, might have
flown above at least,
and now, tagged and clipped,
I am a fettered thing
broken before thirty,
shorn before life had a
chance to sink a
quarter inch under
my skin.

I hide this fragile thing
called body from
even myself
in hopes that my
hot glue gun of forget
will miraculously heal it.

Stigmata

Connected to machines of life,
I look up at a blanched ceiling
with quick, tried eyes.

The smooth minutes are broken only
by the sounds of my own shakes
and the choreographed beeps
of my life works.

All is whirling fear.

I feel my fingernails try to dig a solid frame
beneath tubing and beeping and pain.

My mind shrinks to specs dancing
and I feel the pit of the black beyond
bearing down upon
large against the sliding curtain.

My eyes find yours,
and I eat from them, greedy tongued –
let your completeness calm my head and
tether me to nowness.

You hold my hand,
and as the tides of sleepy pills
wash around and pull me down,
I watch your image fade through
slitting orange rimmed eyelids –
a flimsy kite string to bring me back
from the darkness beyond comprehension.

Hunger Knock

Her eyes dog-like,
face a white ghost
moon in a pocket,
she sits, a frail
wicker warped chair
bent by the bow
of disease.

Fingers claw like,
her fork dips for load
and she mouths
her food, feels the
creepers of rejection
furl in the pit of
her plum stomach.

She ignores its
raspy voice and
chews through it
with determination
tumored in singleness.

Bone meshes tight
to deflated flesh;
her skeleton speaks
for itself; it is a
competition for
muscle and mass.

Wilted,
the frame of her life
poises on the knife
of stomach gurgle
rumble chance, and
she listens to the
conversation vaguely,
hearing only her own
death and hunger
knocking.

Copyright 2010, Katarina Boudreaux. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.

Originally from south Louisiana, Katarina Boudreaux graduated with honors from TCU with a BA in English, and a BA in music. Her poetry has most recently appeared in PANK, South Jersey Underground, the Battered Suitcase, the Oak Bend Review, Lines + Stars, Inscape, and the Northville Review. To check out original music and other work, please go to www.katarinaboudreaux.com.