Kristin Bock
Jylian Gustlin
INVITATION
On Monday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Tuesday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Wednesday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Thursday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Friday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Saturday, Satan takes out the garbage of the world.
On Sunday, Satan folds his dark wings, turns on
the little lamp above his desk and writes:
Dear Dayside Creatures
I am a boy who lives in the woods.
I’ll leave the moon on
all night among the leaves.
A SNOWMAN IS CRYING TEARS OF FIRE
A snowman is crying tears of fire. They burn straight through his mittens. Stigmata, the snowman mouths to the boy, turning his palms to the moon. Hot coals for eyes, you know. The boy nods. We are alike, you and I, says the snowman—with our corny hats, just waiting for the world to knock us down and laugh. No, says the boy, I am more like my father, and knocks the snowman’s head off. Why did you hurt me, the snowman asks, his mouth half-crushed, full of snow and stones. My father says a freshly severed head will always try to bite the earth, says the boy. I see, says the snowman, and rage never targets its intended.
UNWILLING ROBOT
I wasn’t prepared for my current state of wakefulness. My soul sits patiently in a chair. In this way, my body is a waiting room, a fish tank, a box of static. For what am I halfway through my life, if not my shadow reaching the mailbox long before me.
Kristin Bock holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she teaches in the Business Communication Program. Her first collection, CLOISTERS, won Tupelo Press’s First Book Award and the da Vinci Eye Award. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including The Black Warrior Review, Columbia, Crazyhorse, FENCE, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, Salt Hill and VERSE. Bock is also a founding editor of the literary magazine Bateau, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellow. She lives with her husband, artist Geoffrey Kostecki, in Montague, Massachusetts and together they restore liturgical art.