You have to run open mouthed
after “Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell”
to winter. Your body is Indiana
strung between better states.
You found a man who thought
everything worthy was broken,
wanted to fix roofs and engines
and you, foolish girl. Now you must
dismantle his story. Run to the
desert and bury your heels in
the waterless earth. Let your nights
be long and whiskey weathered. Let
men touch you who don’t deserve
hands and then tell them that.
Crush chiles in your kitchen,
cook them into sauce into
your lips. Wear lace on the outside.
Let your hair grow long. Tattoo
your neck, your chest, your thighs.
Stupid girls are always trying
to scrub their skin clear.
And you are not stupid. You are full
of knots, ringed with memory.
You have legs as resilient as cacti
and you can plant them anywhere.
Allison Field Bell is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Utah, and she has an MFA from New Mexico State University. She is the author of the poetry chapbook, Without Woman or Body, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press and the creative nonfiction chapbook, Edge of the Sea, forthcoming from CutBank Books. Allison’s prose appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, DIAGRAM, The Gettysburg Review, The Adroit Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Smartish Pace, The Cincinnati Review, Passages North, RHINO Poetry, The Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. Find her at allisonfieldbell.com.
