Christine Laine: Two Poems

SOME GIRLS IN JUAREZ

have lips much redder than mine;

tequila-sipping mouths spilling language

less gravelly than my everyday English.

They want the need for a heavy coat-

another way to warm their thighs; one

without a white beer-belly coated in hair;

but it never gets that cold in Juarez,

so they rely on a one-night man

and a bottle with a worm inside.

Christine Laine

BLUE PEARL RUMINATION

I don't close the drapes,

beat back the moon with hung cloth-

I bathe in silver

half-natural light,

fold myself onto the floor-

breathe in and out.

I count to nothing,

until the blue pearl settles;

let myself go bare-

lose even my words

in this silent nakedness-

keep only color.

Christine Laine

CHRISTINE LAINE is a writer and a student pilot. In the past, she's been a magician's assistant, a baker, an extra in a few movies, a licensed artist in New Orleans's French Quarter, and a soldier in this girl's U. S. Army. She enjoys making lists on sticky notes when she isn't writing poems. Her work has appeared in Niederngasse, New World Poetry, Free Zone Quarterly, The White Shoe Irregular, Bay Review Liberal Arts Journal, Friction Magazine, 2River View, Kota Press, Absinthe, Stirring (writing as Kit Sullivan), Clean Sheets, Erosha, Beauty for Ashes, Pierian Springs, AnotherSun, The Melic Review, and others. She is also a contributor to In Their Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself. Her 22-poem collection entitled The Poverty of Birds will appear in the anthology Before the Last Shadow Fades. Her first book of poetry, Allegory, was published this spring. Her second book, The Weight of Dust, will be released later this year. Homepage: http://celaine.com/.