Kristy Odelius is the author of Strange Trades (Shearsman Books, 2008) and Bee Spit (Dancing Girl Press, 2007). She is Associate Professor of English at North Park University on Chicago's northwest side, where she teaches Creative Writing and British Romantic Literature. Her reviews and poems have appeared in Chicago Review, Notre Dame Review, GutCult, ACM, Diagram, La Petite Zine, Versal, Moria and others.
THE VIRGINS OF CHICAGO (3)
The virgins of Chicago
work nights at "Federal Screw
Products." They like welding,
sweating and wearing
gray aprons.
"I can't feel anything,"
I sigh as the elevator rises.
The meta-galaxy slips
like a ring on my finger,
in towards morning.
They rest in the caliper,
thinking about tree
trunks, project their
cool measure, summon
the helicopter.
The sky pales, a weird ochre.
All yellow, I'm flying an octave
below the shareholders. It's
always the same. I remember
their names. I can't see their faces,
I can't read their folders.
BABY, WHAT KIND OF HELP DO YOU REALLY WANT?
Pleasure can be expressed in words, bliss cannot.
Roland Barthes
It's a question for a tailor,
a kerosene lip, outlined
fibrous branches fit
to the sky's white lung.
[Brisk.] On the train
a listing agent
negotiates a closing.
Lake View Art Supply
desires the lost city,
organizing phantoms
over the rough street.
How satisfying to dream of
floating, at any moment to find
his long eyes, the drifting
hood of a green aubade.
You indicate habits, prettier
drafts. Check them against
the bells of this business,
the specific "if" pinpointing
order. Think carefully:
not the familiar hand
itself, but the outline
of the familiar hand
rests on your head.
It's warm and its weight is surprising.
You recall you wanted fire, a tutor.
Wait. The so-far text
is grand, is next, rising
out of history like a scandal,
a suggestion, a wet necklace.
THOUGHTS OF FALLING, POLLEN, PARE
When champion-bred
leaves lie splayed
like minimum wage
sin, when sleep,
a raincoat czar,
spreads its liquid
hands thin, I'll say
not on: your life, your daddy's knee, a new knife blade.
Try, swim the brackish margin
between holy and hole, the ocean's
backstitched locomotion loosely
recites "no, there's no such
night in prosaic blood" nodding
its great nose toward the
mollusky dance-floor.
When honey leaks from
eyes bent to breezes
eyes like peach pits
fragrant and useless,
the czar disappears into
the rain's rumpled plumage
my heart's gong-bruised knees
buckling through branches.
It's bee-spit
that blows me
I admit
and you
away.