my pedophile is obsessed with details
when he says appropriate / he is not referring to the number of dollies in
the room or how well they are centered on the tables or whether or not
the items on the dollies are centered on the dollies or the arrangement of
the room is equal to the arrangement of dollies so that the dollies
themselves do not attract all of the attention in the space / he is referring
to whether or not they are essential to the space since the rooms should
not be a compositions of dollies // as in // some attention should be given
to the frame of things // for instance // the fact that all the items in the
room are less than the room / the windows // the plaster // the paint // the
hard wood floors // the doorways // the beams beneath / above /behind
everything // these things / he says / are essential having nothing to do
with my hands or my feet or how they are connected to my body / or how
he wants the right to space everything symmetrically / rearrange a life
in the most appropriate way
my pedophile requires attention
when he speaks of proximity / he is not referring to the fading photograph
in the hall or the razor blade rusting in the shower or the silver frame on
the dressing table for which there is no glass / he is speaking of making
things / dried glue peeling on his fingertips / sequins and glitter in small
drinking cups, plastic membranes of synthetic roses // smell of polish
remover and paint // the sickly slice in his thumb from an X-Acto knife
/ the cut he keeps opening and closing like a lipless pair of lips / the
popsicle stick shoved under his mouth playing patient to the doctor of
his hand / the “O” he says while thinking an “Ah” / the runway out his
doorway littered with bright colored feathers // sparkles // and things
my pedophile experiments with genders
if it is remarkable / it is the marginal line between white bread and wheat,
how the distance is measured in grains / how to move a grain over has
no affect on the general composition / but to move it with ease
demonstrates inclination toward platitude / as with a slice of cheese cut
thicker than thin // a thing not added to the sandwich since it would never
fit collaboratively into the designated space // the way he scrapes
mayonnaise slowly over a cracker / minding the boundaries of its
dimpled crest with the feminized angle of his knife
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of White Goat Black Sheep (FLP) and her poetry has appeared in several literary journals including The Comstock Review, riverSedge, Welter, and The Berkeley Poetry Review. She is an MFA graduate of New England College, Assistant Professor at MSU, reviewer for NewPages, and editor for the Nimrod International Journal. See more of her work on her website.