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THE KNIFE GAME

In a dream, I'm waiting for someone to pick me up, for a red Ford with a broken steering wheel. I've killed the bride. I didn't mean to. She was smaller than me. Had several tiny blue sleeping pills and a lisp. Silver, she'd say, silver. Something dark swimming toward me in the house, like the game, every third girl moving to the next chair. We're all haunted by machines, strange metallic aches settling in my wrists. A woman in the liquor store asks: are you okay, is something wrong? I have several bottles of tequila beneath my dress. A tiny door beneath my sternum, a peep show girl. She looks kind of like your wife, before the accident. Before the hatpins and black gloves. I get used to your thumb in my mouth.

© Kristy Bowen 2007