Volume 16 ~ Spring 2004 ~ ISSN 1543-6063

SHANNA COMPTON

CONTRAST GIRLS

One speaks in swimsuit fashion terms.
One says her name is Jane.
One reveals pitfalls of self-abuse
in the English of her day.

When the phone rings this one curses.
She has no plans for later.
Some girls have names that could be guys'.
This one's a "freak of nature."

This one fancy-pantsed her way
across the continent.
And this one spent large sums of cash
trust-funded by her parents.

That girl there wore stiffened stays
and laced herself with bones.
She tied herself with strings, became
a little ham of rage.

My sister & I once spent the day
walking around in Brooklyn.
We watched a capybera do
nothing, for like an hour.



BUYING A BRA IN MANHATTAN 
ON A BROOKLYN BUDGET

I don't feel ready
for this she thought
crossing the bridge over
the East River fingering
her credit cards. She
wished that her accounts
on both counts were
a little more padded.



WILL THAT BE ALL, 
MRS. KICKBOXER?

Swell sprawler, Mrs. Kickboxer.
It's a loud & lovely picnic.

Group socials can be sickmaking,
so yours is a sparse surprise.

Thanks. My lover made the lemonade
and she's a tart! Hoo ha.

Berries immaculate, pale cheese,
do please eat the stuff

or Bob will outdo himself.
He'd rather squeeze the condiments

than sort the mail. He's tickled cheeky.
Quick, grab the Kodak. Somone's flummoxed Bill.

NON-ULTRA JOY

She skinks around in a pair of shorts with cowboy boots.
The fruit-fall pollinates the air and reminds her of sweet bruises faded,
the kitchen-sink scent of mussed beds and late showers.

She pushes with one foot her usual carousel of lust.
The oleander and the screaming jay concur.
The doghouse glints and leers with its glass windows.

The other girls dance like pecking hens.

Poems © Shanna Compton 2004. All rights reserved.

Shanna Compton's poems may be found in McSweeney's, Eye-Rhyme, Pindeldyboz, and her chapbook Down Spooky. She is Associate Publisher of Soft Skull Press and the editor of LIT at New School University. She is currently editing Gamers, an anthology on video games (Soft Skull, 2004). Her first poetry collection Brand New Insects was a finalist for the 2003 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books. For more information stop by her web site.

Duncan Hannah
www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

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