Nancy A Henry

TWENTY-ONE

I’d like to wait with you at the bus stop but I’m wearing my pants inside out again. I try to stop it but it creeps back up on me. These pockets on my hips, like flippers--you don’t want your friends to see that. Besides, I’m becoming invisible. Though with gloves I appear to still have hands. But what if I lift my arm to wave, what if my sleeve slipped down a little? One thing would lead to another, you know how people talk. Soon they’d take you away to live with a woman who is not becoming transparent. Run along. I’ll see you. You will always see me

NINETEEN

Oh I have my favorite words, they gamble in my sleep. Roll themselves into astonishing patterns, argue. You have no idea how strange this all is, says iridescence, sort of a fairy word, flighty, not one I would expect to have an opinion about anything. Oh, says liquefy, I’ve seen more than a few strange things in my day. Fire says, insistent, remember to make her forget. It’s time. Nancy A Henry's previous and upcoming publications include Southern Humanities Review, Creosote, Spoon River Poetry Review, Cafe Review and others. Her second chapbook "Anything Can Happen" is forthcoming from MuscleHead Press in 2002.

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