Melissa Carrington

Not Quite Ken

This kid boy grew ordinarily
and controlled fire trucks that sirened.
He wore plastic hats and sun-rubber boots
and held a four-foot hose the shade of mandarin.
Then his youth claimed manhood and a senior girl advised:
your body begs for protein and gym time.
 
He was ambitious, enthralled by Robert Burns
blessed with a robust muscular heart
and bid his last buck to a hungry mother.
But in the high school halls, he wandered alone.
He was only a virgin with bony arms.
 
He was told to practice chivalry,
adjured to fill the bill
workout, simper, juice, and entice.
His efforts had gone unnoticed
like a schizophrenic’s prognosis.
So he gorged himself with Vebonol and lard
and watched his body grow.
 
Two extra sets of pallbearer hands
wedged him in that gloss-rich case.
His lips sewn shut with overlapped threads
depressed his swollen, sugar face.
“And he used to be so athletic” said that senior girl.
At least he lost those bony arms
to which he celebrates his capper.

---

Still Life with Knife (Cento)

I know who killed me. I was
nineteen on a hot and steamy
 
Wednesday in July.  I dwelled
in a whisper, “Here, doctor,
 
take these scissors... cut
beneath the organs of my chest,
 
and let them rest in your favorite
chair like an old art portrait
 
of mushroom risotto
and a glass of malbec.


 


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Melissa Carrington is currently a student at Lewis University working towards her Bachelor of Arts. Although this is her first time being published, she plans on making the necessary leaps towards becoming an emerging writer.