POETRY | Krysia Wazny McClain The Blur

POETRY

The Blur

By Krysia Wazny McClain

The first dog I ever met was a puppet. A white and tan bulldog with my grandfather’s hand inside. I reached in and felt its soft interior, softer than its fur.

What did I have but wanting?

Looking back, I see a girl hug a figurine of a yellow lab before bed, believing it will turn to a bounding puppy by morning.

I thought this memory had God in it, but it’s pure fairy tale, hours of watching Pinocchio, entranced by a wish that would come true, pushed over an invisible edge— time?—into life.

In my teens, sex sat on that cliffside, a close drop I thought would never come. By 31, my body is found at the bottom, drawn by the gravity of second sexual awakening.

Tonight, I’ll kiss a woman who resembles a girl from high school, brown hair in a long ponytail. My tongue will linger in her air, the place where she

would be, next to me in my mind’s darkened theater. Our seat backs are velvet and red. The balcony is a precipice.