Kristy Bowen's work has appeared in a number of electronic and print journals, including Cranky, Diagram, Slipstream, and Another Chicago Magazine. She's the author of several handmade and limited edition chapbooks, most recently The Archaeologist's Daughter (Moon Journal Press, 2005) and errata (dgp, 2005). In 2004, she was selected as first place winner in the Poetry Center of Chicago's Annual Juried Reading. A sometimes collage/text/book artist, she is the editor of the online poetry zine, wicked alice, and founder of dancing girl press, which publishes chapbooks by female poets. Her full-length collection, the fever almanac, is forthcoming from Ghost Road Press in 2006.
the dollmaker's apprentice,
or various form of violence
Now that we have capsized
in our dark boats, the milk
Still, he loves them, pale
invertebrate things, how they
suffer of astonishment,
of pinafores. The heart
like a hinge box,
or better, leeches in a jar.
We went out in the glass-bottomed
boat and upset the teacups.
Night gathered like a skirt.
On some subcontinent, we broke
the spine of the thing we could
not name. The tiny woman bathed
in blue light, who wanted
an umbrella, wanted a suitcase,
needs a dictionary, and only
the smallest lamp.