INCHWORM ON THE WINDSHIELD
Like the arch of a chartreuse ankh,
she inches across the lid
of another universe,
one that refuses her entrance.
Her silk can drop her no lower,
so she buckles across the slick surface,
staring down at the blue and green stars
of dashboard lights.
Inside the car,
human shadows shiver and billow
like strange gods.
She looks into the glittering planets
of their eyes.
The night stutters and hums.
As the car gathers speed,
she loses hold
of the newly discovered realm.
A great wind tests her faith
in her own invisible feet.
They silently slither
across the impossible glass.
The gust inhales her
toward the moonlit maples,
the elusive, silvery clouds.
Wingless angel-worm,
she wriggles mid-air,
knowing she can levitate
until delivered
to a graspable afterlife.
She believes in the yellow ball
that will surely rise again,
illuminating a heaven
of infinite, edible green.
Christine Boyka Kluge
INVISIBLE BOX
The heart is a white-faced mime
trapped in a tiny box.
His palms press invisible walls,
but find no exit.
He discovers the world
is as small as his armspan,
his reach the same as his grasp.
The audience laughs as he panics,
silently clutching his throat,
but only the children continue to howl
as he bugs his eyes
and, shivering, falls,
raking the air
with his startling white gloves.
Christine Boyka Kluge
CHRISTINE BOYKA KLUGE has received six Pushcart Prize nominations, and her first book of poetry is forthcoming from Bitter Oleander Press. The Bitter Oleander featured her poetry and interview in their Fall, 2001 issue and gave her the 1999 Frances Locke Poetry Award. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Tupelo Press's prose poetry anthology, Arts & Letters, Fine Madness, Luna, New Millennium Writings, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, Quarter After Eight, Rattapallax, Tar River Poetry, Disquieting Muses (online) and others. She is also a visual artist and children's writer.
