With broken talk is how I find you—
enthused, delighted; our silly bodies
the yellowest of all. I have many friends
but none like you, no translucent quartz
waltz-time peppered and cold.

 

I will tell everyone of my romps
& might mention loneliness.
I wonder if we might ever speak of petty things
instead of great expanse.

 

My friend sings to me when I’m blue:
Kiss the twat and also the tulips.
She says that she is a life-giver.
I do not disagree. And to define you,
I’d say mister piece of tinsel burning on the sun.

 

I wish this rapture for all who seek it.
I wish, for you, literary countesses
and cool things—$10 chocolate shakes
in Chicago at the Jewish eatery/ goat cheese
induced happiness/ advisors for when
you feel most somber/ and all of this
free for your perusal and intake.

 

We are learning the language of distance
and also with which colors to dye our hair.
There are boys trying to capture things
& render them voyeuristic—
my hand brushing a curtain,
an exhale in frosty winter night.
It makes me feel strange. You would agree.

 

It’s all quite odd over here. I swear
with each caffeine-wakeup I find mania:
water never cold enough. I wish to swim
and somehow greet you with a face
I’ll never master, the face of pansies
and hopefuls, and when I look at the full moon
I know my feeling is something like its glow.

 

Bring me a fainting couch. I will provide
gas station cakes and all will smell of petroleum.
There are engines revving up and sour,
wanting for stagnancy while singing a sad song upbeat like
my Bonnie lies over the ocean
and it is water that separates the best of us,
water that separates the duct from the eye
& water in the clear glass pitcher without a mouth
to be held inside, swallowed.

 

Don’t look so forlorn when shears meet fabric—
you are a skinny one and thinner than my hips.
I promise all will fit you, and if not, just let a scream.

 

You have tasty mood swings that frighten me.
Sometimes my muscles greet spasms with indifference
and I, too, in yoga poses question
why this pain we bear becomes boredom
and why in the calmest moments I clamor to inhabit mania
and also the reverse.

 

I don’t think we know the persistence of ache like a guillotine.
Lest we meet in 1800’s France, I will come to you loftily and curtsey,
(like a lady you will find me) all dolled up and feeling proud,
the finality of yes, indeed, I’ll raise my chin to embarrassment
and speaking with sub textual confession, beg for holding
for we know our minds are units of height.

Anne Malin Ringwalt's (/AM) work has appeared in Hanging Loose, Cargoes, POETALK, The Best Teen Writing of 2011 and Quiksilver's Summer Stories. Her work in music and writing was featured on UK blog 'The Young Creatives.' Ringwalt's debut folk CD, Vessel, is available on iTunes now. Currently, Ringwalt is collaborating with two composers on an ambitious project; her experimental prose-poem the lord and gypsy just kisser is being transformed into an eight-part opera that features two female opera vocalists, a string quartet, a contemporary dancer, and a companion film. the lord and gypsy just kisser will likely premiere in Michigan at Interlochen Center for the Arts this winter. Ringwalt was part of the 2012 OF ZOOS Summer Workshop.

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