THERE is a painting inside the blue house that
the woman in the red dress passes daily. Two
women in a landscape of wheat and
wildflowers, holding baskets of bluestem and
the hand of a small girl child swinging
between them. There are no bears that the
woman can see, no animals moving in the
underbrush so slightly that only the hairs
inside her ears can sense them. It must be
lovely, she thinks, to be alone in the world
and not. To feel the child’s weight between
them. To caress the soft smudge of its cheek
where it fades into the landscape.
—
This selection comes from Kristy Bowen’s book the shared properties of water and stars, available from Noctuary Press. Purchase your copy here!
A writer and visual artist, Kristy Bowen is the author of several book, chapbook, and zine projects, including the forthcoming beautiul, sinister (Maverick Duck Press, 2013) and girl show (Black Lawrence, 2013). She lives in Chicago where she runs dancing girl press & studio, devoted to paper-oriented arts and publishing work by women writers/artists.
Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.
