Table of Contents
by Cyn Kitchen
Morning sun. Stinging blue. Slathered over the plowed field, waiting. Smells like fingertips after rain folding in sheets of collapse untethered from the sky. Sparkles perched on dew-tipped grass, each blade a story, an interruption. Masquerades as a bird crashing through undergrowth in search of spoil. That biblical sense of impending arrival that never comes, has already come. You are enough. Hours spent wiling away the light, supplication with fate or something that resembles destination. Hands made to fit their shape, each bone an engineering marvel. A sequestered mind. Doesn’t fit in the fruit bowl, swimming pool, no X marking the spot. An aurora borealis of words, syncopated. You were already enough. A valorous Viking among women filling each room you enter. What to make of scars? A recipe, clatter of bones, brew-pot of stones. The bell that dings at the end of the line, return, repeat. She is not her name, daughter of slaves. Vulgar display of wealth. Tell her when you see her, that I’ve been waiting a long time, that I’ve known her from the start, that fate is next to father in the dictionary.
Cyn Kitchen
Cyn is associate professor and chair in the Department of English at Knox College where she teaches literature and creative writing. She is the author of Ten Tongues, a collection of short stories. Her essays and poems appear in such places as Fourth River, American Writers Review, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry South and Cutleaf. Cyn makes her home in Forgottonia, a downstate region on the Illinois prairie.
Books
More: http://cynkitchen.net
Thank you Cyn. This pieces opens up a lot of possibility for me, part legend, part contemporary. I find a lot to think about.