Maureen Kingston

CHRISTMAS OUROBOROS IN JULY

bill-paying / the tail wagging the dog / debt sniffs her fear / circles / prepares to gorge on her
misery / she takes refuge in the garage / smokes a joint / plunges her hands into the 4/4 time of
her mother’s disco ball / inside its mirrored womb / a nest of smaller balls / a manger of
ornament hatchlings / she rubs a few for luck / prays for a fresh orbit / for a different rosary of
DNA to emerge from the disco thrust / the old glass facets bite & scratch / her palms bleed / a
sign of breech / of bottom-down fortune


MAUREEN KINGSTON is an assistant editor at The Centrifugal Eye. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gargoyle, The Hamilton Stone Review, IthacaLit, So to Speak, Stone Highway Review, Terrain.org, and Verse Wisconsin. A few of her recent prose pieces have also been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart awards, and named to Wigleaf’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fiction list.


Read more by Maureen Kingston:

Three poems at IthicaLit
Poem in Hamilton Stone Review
Seven poems at Nebraska Center for Writers