8th Annual Juried Reading
Third Place Poet
Kristy Bowen

Kristy Bowen's work has appeared in several print and online journals, including Stirring, Blue Fifth, 3rd Muse, and Moon Journal. In 2001, she was awarded Honorable Mention in the Korone/Womanspace Poetry Competition and her poetry is forthcoming in the next volume of In Our Own Words: A Generation Defines Itself. She holds an M.A. in English from DePaul University, and edits the online literary zine Wicked Alice.

Kristy Bowen attacks her subjects with vigorous imagery and passionate conviction. --James Tate

Drought

Somewhere the trees are burning
along the road, kindling sizzles
and cracks, the night closes
around her like a fist.

She is writing, slips of paper,
in the dark of her room.
The word alone aches in her
teeth, knocks on her door.

She places father beneath her
pillow, listens to its beat,
like a moth's wings.
Her dreams are dangerous,
in them, she carries a knife.

Somewhere, love forms
a hole so endless it echoes.
Her mother's cries travel its edge,
drop like a stone in a well.

In this summer of fires,
drought rests beneath the house
settles in its bones,
rattles the windows.

It has taken up residence
in the hollow of her chest,
violence in every breath,
every kiss like a blister.

Years from now, every hand
will leave a bruise,
every tongue a scar,
even the word safe
will harbor harm,

even new growth will burn.

-- Kristy Bowen

(C) 2002 The Poetry Center of Chicago
All Rights Revert Back to the Author Upon Publication.
No Portion of this poem may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.