Perimeter Shopping Trip
- Perimeter Shopping Trip
After Au bonheur des dames by Remedios Varo
In a body made of cogs and wheels, riding the cuspOf crone-hood, she thinks of lips stained berry red that whisperIn some dark: Buy a new one, or you'll fade away.She doesn't believe she's a doll, yet she acts as if she were madeOf plastic. In a chrome exoskeleton, rolling out the doorOf her cuckoo clock garage, she gets in line with the othersDriving to the mall, where mannequins model spare parts:Platinum teeth, rubber knees, silk noses, pinwheel eyes spinningIn perfumed mist. Arms, legs, a head, reflect off black marble,And the question arises—Whose face is that? Glass doors open and close.The cool hush of air. Escalators ease her to the lower level. [End Page 105]
Christine Swint teaches introductory poetry writing and first-year composition at Georgia State University, where she also studies in the M.F.A. program and serves as an assistant editor for Five Points. Her writing interests include Eastern philosophy, folktales, motherhood, and visual art. Her poems have appeared most recently or are forthcoming in Ekphrasis, Hot Metal Bridge, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, and Shadowbox. She is the winner of the 2012 Agnes Scott Writer's Festival award in poetry, judged by Joy Harjo.
