NYMPH DRAINAGE ❋ L. Christie

This work comes from the collection Nymph Drainage, which was shortlisted for The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors.

BEL/L/E

Daybed apple whore
Sliding down the banister of the brothel

BE/L/L/E/VU/E

Blasted a dove
Out of the square

J/A/R/D/I/N

Pushing skull through dark but safe
Water
Early morning

GROWTH

Dreaming about
Silk fly white bones
Fishing bolero

SINE together, SIGN.

NOT REAL GIRL IT’S NOT REAL

I’m a gift for anyone who chooses to open me.

STOP CLEARING YOUR THROAT—

A line, ribbon. A line is what I want

From me to you, ribbon. Ribbon
Is you.

You can tie, you can slip.

You can bond and knot.

I am simply whatever is enclosed,
Air or coal.
Silky bitch—

Your substance tells you you are real,
In the box I can’t hear anything, Schrödinger’s bitch—
Very flexible, in a split forever.

LIMIT

I only feel happy when a cloud of gnats scrubs me like a wire brush1111111111
I only feel happy when I am drinking a basin of red wine
I only feel happy when I spent less than 5 [redacted] on it
I only frog with wet breath and horror sometimes, I only cry
In the dark when I am made to reveal the nakedness of how much of a baby I am
I only smell good when I’m naked
I only have all the other shit that everyone else has
I only see the oak leaves tapping at my window like a mom
I only close the window

PHONES

Everyone in the books is in love
Cotton candy internet is in love with her and them and it
Sweet sweet hands, every button is a hand
Every hand is for a button
Every thing can be emphasized
Every word means something
Flightless green – that’s how the world feels when you’re not on your phone.
Everything sits.
All the pathos, nowhere to flow, how did they do it…
Everybody tits
All the people bounce all over the world
All the people experiment
Even while they’re sitting on the ground.

PRAYER TO THE MOTHER OF DOGS

—FOR DOROTHEA TANNING

Sickness recedes when you give me your wet hand,
A mass of primordial colours,
I am a blossom
In the watery cup of it
Thank you,
Thank you.
Gouache, the tea-
Coloured light
Coming through the bay window,
This life sits in a chair by the door in a skull that is mine, I’m looking at it.
In through the eyes,
Hungry and slick canine buttons,
I see my puggish self
Reflected-
And beyond that
The room we were in.
I know as we sat
In this thinking,
Our twined hands like the remaining hot drop of brine
In a conch’s whorl of corridors,
That sinister-mindedness swirled in you
Ready to be on the canvas,
Ready to walk out onto it.
At all other moments but that
One,
You are aloof,
Historical.
If my head is ever just bone,
You’ll still be in it.