Naugahyde
She meets you at the door draped in white fur, animal tails dripping
all around her ankles and asks if you have the right address. As she
turns away you see just the red tips of her nipples and needle marks,
like badger bites, down her neck. She smiles and beckons you to the
living room where young men slumber naked, coiled in bear, rabbit,
and fox. This is not night but a brilliant day in which a gorged fly
taps at the window and pale water laps against the levy. She rubs her
face against your wrist and something inside you turns over. Amber
lights wink over rising water. Warning or promise, all shimmery
and glistening, her teeth stitch patterns impossible to unravel. Later,
you’ll retrace you steps to the point before you unwound to the girl
in the coat, rank with fish stench, who invited you in with a turn of
mink and copper hair.
“Naugahyde” appeared in Kelly Boyker’s book, Zoonosis, available from Hyacinth Girl Press. Purchase yours today!
Kelly Boyker’s work has appeared in many places, including, but not limited to, PANK, Prick of the Spindle, Arsenic Lobster, Opium Magazine and FRiGG. Her work has been Pushcart nominated and won the Richard Hugo House Power of Place Annual Inquiry. Recently, she was honored to participate in the Fainting Couch Idioglossia collaborative anthology from Blood Pudding Press. When she is not at her mortgage-paying job she acts as as the poetry editor of Menacing Hedge. She lives in Seattle with four cats, one dog and her wonderful husband, Gio.
This week’s Wardrobe Best Dressed was selected Nicole Oquendo. Nicole Oquendo is an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications, and the Nonfiction Editor of Best of the Net. Her most recently published essays and poetry can be found in DIAGRAM, fillingStation, Storm Cellar, and Truck.
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Dearest Water by Nancy Takacs - September 27, 2023
- Nominations Are Now Open for 2024 Best of the Net Anthology - September 26, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Dearest Water by Nancy Takacs - September 26, 2023