The One about the Fox
I have touched one in a video online,
using someone else’s hands.
While he sits there and scratches and scratches and scratches
at something brown on his neck.
Someone very pale is handing him a red gummy bear.
He licks her hand and squeals.
We all fall into round patches of dust
next to the path. We all chew on the leaves
of a bush with rose-colored berries.
Three Sink Basin
Five am: half way to my plating
job at The Calf. On the bus, I keep
my pet fox in its cage. I am very bad
at washing dishes. My husband says this
is because of white privilege: I can’t tell
the dirty from the clean. I burn my hands
in the hot water, even wearing gloves.
Yesterday, I spun a pyramid of beer glasses
onto the soapy plastic floor. Only three
survived. My fox yawns, circles, goes back
to sleep on her pink towel. The towel
is embroidered with eyeless flowers, all
bending to the grass. Sometimes she picks
at the threads like a hysterical machine,
the same angry bobbing I use to chew my thumb-
nail. My white suede boots, scuffed at the toes,
are stained from the early rain. On the side
of the bus at a stoplight, a woman stuffs clouds
into children’s mouths and laughs. Her lips are
violet, the sky behind her a radioactive blue.
Self portrait with Reflected Light
She told me, “I have bought the moon,
a copy – a replacement for all the things
I have forgotten. Ten years ago, I told
myself never to write about the moon.
But this is a blow-up moon. A 3-D printed
moon. Not a grey fox walking on her hind
legs and smiling. Not a handful of rusted
rings under a starfish at the playground.
Not a flashlight for exploring the pinkish
storm drain in November. Not a piece of my
body, excised, shoved in a red plastic cup
signed sharps.” Oh, when did you turn
like this? When did your sickness vanish,
only to appear and jump out in front of the Fiat
on that parkway? Not the headlights. Not
the twin fawns, frozen as our car approaches
over the ridge. The moon is stupid as it stares.
Notes on Love, VII
We live in that red square
by the side of a milky
river, the box so small,
as I sit on your lap,
my calves fall asleep.
We pretend it’s winter
because we like to wear
different wooly hats,
because we delight in
sucking the cold out
of each others’ toes.
This cube so dim
we’ve forgotten how
to spell: a soft carmine
hearse or horse
croons just
beyond the lid.
Blazevox published Christine’s second book, Echo Park, in 2011, and in 2017, Ghostbird Press published Christine’s sixth chapbook, a linked collection of hybrid poems, Notes on Wolves and Ruin.