A crane shot of the plains wide-angle. I’m the crane. How many frames per second? I’ve lost count of the colored slides rolling by their mounds backlit Wyoming coal thrusting eastbound. I’m the dawn too lighting the Wind River cutthroat orange dredged in fugitive dust deep-fried in subtraction. Never the money shot or the movie’s star just the one dissolving at the end of each day trying to survive the trend of cinéma vérité. Reprinted with permission from The Meadowland Review, Winter 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Maureen Kingston

SPRING FORWARD by Maureen Kingston

When the light changes I see them, bug tattoos in the porch globe, fallen bodies bulb-dried to frosted glass — silenced commas and curled compass needles, lost bearings without sentience or latitude. Did they swarm off stage? Did their wings spit flamenco flames? Or was suffocation the invisible coup de grace? Sometimes all the crystal ball reveals are burnt shadows on cave walls. Reprinted with permission from The Meadowland Review, Winter 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Maureen Kingston

WYOMING AUBADE by Maureen Kingston

A few degrees here or there in the mattress frypan, the difference between scrambled and over easy. The night before, the crack of pool balls breaking, sweet-water pearls and whiskey spilling across the western sky, the fluid current igniting, climbing the fire escape to extinction. After the storm the branch hisses in the morning dew, the brook trout lies motionless, its belly slit, bisected by the sun’s spin- casted rays. Reprinted with permission from Muddy River Poetry Review, Spring 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Maureen Kingston

ARMCHAIR SUICIDE by Maureen Kingston

Always, when March tangoed with April, when ice wrestled rain, I assisted in killing winter so spring could be. The five blocks between home and school my battlefield. The morning ice on the puddle faces, the glazed footprints from the night before, lost their thin lives to my boot heels. Crack. Smash. You giggled and screamed, perched on high, as slush geysered up my pant legs. Four years older than you. My job to protect your Sunday dress from Ma’s wild preserves: spearing the paraffin shield with a barbecue fork, taking the raspberry hit. Too much Jack Daniel’s the night before your wedding. Our talk turned morose, to if worse ever came to worst. I dodged at first, pointing to my glass, quoted Ishmael: “This is my substitute for pistol and ball.” But you wouldn’t let go. Pills, you said. Spineless girl, I said, kicking your folded legs. Our paths so different. You following the rules, me waving my quixotic sword. But I’m the colossal fraud. A coward when you need me most. Your small life now at the mercy of a morphine pump. Living in six-minute intervals. Please? you ask. And I can’t. Reprinted with permission from Lily: A Monthly Online Literary Review, December 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Maureen Kingston

CELESTE FIGS by Maureen Kingston

Their violet brown her-shapes don’t travel well unless preserved in Newton’s chest of drawers. Their red-rich ovaries a creek bed of chaste seeds, heavenly sweet, the girl-next-door tendering backyard caviar. But like all such Vestal beauties, a little frightening, too, witches best put to the stake; Christmas stars flaming in freefall, landing on our plates, hissing, salvation tarred in figgy pudding. Reprinted with permission from The Centrifugal Eye, Summer-Fall 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Maureen Kingston

RACIAL PROFILING by Maureen Kingston

It happens once a month or so, his cuff seizing mine. Not always the same boy, but always a boy; not always the same-sized hand, but always a brown one. Like mine. This thief of palms is usually four or five years old, never more than three feet tall; and so enthralled by the drama of the big box store he’ll follow alongside me for aisles, his head oscillating, his gaze mulling horizons of pickle jars, congeries of baby cupcakes, the curious columns of cloven feet on ice. And I don’t want to spoil his wonder or scare him into running away. That happened the first time. Sweet Jesus, the siren screams, the crowd twitching, reaching for its judgment guns. I take a gentler approach now; bend my head to his ear, whisper, Está bien, mijo, in my phrasebook Spanish. Sometimes I must whisper it twice before his fawn eyes will meet mine; before the upside down question mark of his drooling mouth discovers my face does not match the tender brown hand of his mamí<.i>. Reprinted with permission from Poetry Quarterly, Summer 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Maureen Kingston

TAILSPIN by Maureen Kingston

That time in marriage after carnal electrification but before the dusty gulch. Middle Time. You flick a half-dollar onto the bar top put a little English on it make a wager. A clear outcome is seconds away. Only it’s not a half-dollar spinning in the neon. It’s your wedding ring. And your head decides right then and there to chase the tail out the door before the ring has a chance to land. Reprinted with permission from Plains Song Review , XI 2009 Copyright © 2009 by Maureen Kingston

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