Christine Pacyk

Paper Pygmalion

Folded on the sharp crease.
Then reversed.
He calls this geometry
yet curves were exposed
as woman unfolds herself.
 
She wanted to travel to shore 
where Pacific waters wrinkled
as delicate as paper sheets.  
 
Bonefolder smooth the water’s wounds.
The growing distance, a paper padlock
keyed to heartbeat and tide.  
   
Stay away from water, flame.
 
At sunrise came questions.
She asked for scissors and waited
for a response in her favor, a gesture
before her resentment could creep in.
  
Stay away from flame, water.
 
They say woman is made from clay,
rib or water, mistaken for a hollow core.
 
Poems on paper limbs
and boats sliced from palms
on the horizon countless paper sails.

---

A Marriage

In the evening
 
we constellate images
willow sapping lawn
 
clematis arboring our heads
ceiling of swollen blossoms
drooping with mist     
 
Under lilac canopy.
 
We are patio dancing
(he and I) after rain
 
atmosphere hushed     
 
his open palm invites
the converging of our skin
 
night insects sting, drink, bleed us 
 
How suddenly the tongue
coils
 
between us words emerge
from raw mouths
 
Again moths circling
 
my words flutter wounded
around the patio lamppost
 
night-flying wasps
released from his mouth


 


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Christine Pacyk is currently finishing her thesis for MFA in poetry at Northwestern University, which gave her the opportunity to work with Dr. Simone Muench. She has poems published or forthcoming in The Found Poetry Review, Monsters and Dust, The List Anthology, and The Beloit Poetry Journal.