Vanishing Points
Because the absence of prettiness can lead to invisibility
she bit a clean circle in the flesh around her wrists,
ringed in red wells, used her teeth for the degloving,
veins and sinews tucked neatly under bone,
in love with her own blood.
Because the molar necklace sweltered at her throat
she held his body against a wall and outlined him
with a privet green crayon to stave off the black-luck
flickering on and off like a distant radio tower,
his red eye perched between steel beams,
while the slight vibration in the steering column under her hands
indicated imbalance.
Because it was not the first time he’d gone missing
she stretched her arms and grew oddly vast,
left no evidence behind, because at that juncture
there was only amputation. Flesh dissolved,
all the particular tricks to disappearing
down straight to the bottom of things.
“Vanishing Points” 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.
- Interview with Joy Ladin, Author of Impersonation - June 8, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: lithopaedion by Carrie Nassif - June 8, 2023
- Sundress Reads: Review of Four in Hand - June 7, 2023