portion of the artwork for Kelly Boyker's poetry
Naugahyde
Kelly Boyker

She meets you at the door draped in white fur, animal tails dripping all around her ankles and asks if you have the right address. As she turns away you see just the red tips of her nipples and needle marks, like badger bites, down her neck. She smiles and beckons you to the living room where young men slumber naked, coiled in bear, rabbit and fox. This is not night but a brilliant day in which a gorged fly taps at the window and pale water laps against the bulkhead. She rubs her face against your wrist and something inside you turns over. Red lights wink over rising water. Warning or promise, all shimmery and glistening, her teeth stitch patterns impossible to unravel. Later you’ll retrace your steps to the point before you unwound to the girl in the coat, rank with fish stench, who invited you in with a turn of mink and copper hair.


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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 33 | Summer 2011