New York

The wing flirts with oncoming night,
dancing with dark and shadows.
A blanket of shimmering light
spreads as far as I can see.
I think of gathering it up
and presenting it to Grandma's
Singer sewing machine.

Back home in the light of one small lamp
her machine hums softly for her,
she and it working as one,
each no more than an extension of the other.
This woman-machine
defies logic, creating exquisite clothes
one would not think such a
mismatched pair
of wrinkled lady and rusty noisy machine
left over from another age
could fashion.

If the blanked outside my window
was set upon Grandma's table
left to the care of she and the Singer,
it would perhaps be molded
into a risque evening gown.
The seductive shimmering robe
would follow closely the curves
of any body it draped across,
winking softly as it played wanton
games with light and shadow.

The illusory dress jolts from thought
as I am jostled
in my straight-backed
worn to the floatble cushion seat.

I look at my table with the
crumpled pretzel wrapper clinging
to the bottom of my dewy
plastic cup, condensation pouring
down the sides, born from
cool of iced Ginger Ale.
Accompanied by the rustle
of garbage bag filled with
napkins and pretzel wrappers,
the stewardess steps up the aisle
and squirrels my garbage
into the bag with all the rest.

Back outside the window
my potential gown has dissipated
into a mass of broken lights, no longer
meshed into the breathtaking
glitter blanked that Grandma
and her Singer would have coveted.

- Kathryn Krueger, 1997

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

I shame the tiger

I shame the tiger
The brilliant streaks
which comprimise his coat
pale
against the intricate web
of confused
yet proud
streaks, spots, interlocking bands
of blazing color and light
which amalgamate my soul.

- Kathryn Krueger, 1998

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Grey, rubbery, ballooning its way up through my abdomen, my pain said to me, "I protect you.

'I hold all your other pain."

In simply noticing it, it changed. The air slipped out. This thing which had been large, rubbery, now became small, snakelike, snaked in amongst my intestines and other orgrans. And it slithered away out of sight, silently, leaving hardly a trace.

---

My right half; red, prickly, firey. My left; calm, smooth, orange, rubbery.

"I am your right side," says the right to the left. "I am an animal. I feel. I live. I burn wild and free, I am consumed."

"I am your left," says the left to the right. "I cool you. I protect you. I cradle you when you hurt. I am forever healing you, calming you, sedating you. I need you to calm yourself, and to pay attention. To feel less. To tame yourself. To be more like me."

"I need to burn," says the right. "I burn. Burn with me. Live and feel. Nothing that is around you is important."

Do they then begin to merge?