Kris Bigalk					

Previous Tenant

In the empty apartment, under the sink, 
I find an old tea cup, ancient dregs ghost brown stain 
marring the bone-white bowl, a red-orange
lipstick mark on the edge, a parting kiss.

I imagine her idle, in the early afternoon, 
dripping tea on the table,
a donut crumbling in her hands.  
She takes a drag from 
a Virginia Slim (I found the
dusty full ashtrays on the windowsill,
hidden behind the tattered lace curtains).  
She wears her pale yellow chenille robe, 
a careless singe mark marring the left sleeve, 
the newspaper spread like a tablecloth
before her, the light from the half-open blinds
just a little too bright.

The Abandoned Mind

You have to understand
this mind was a burden;
I didn’t really want it.
Keeping such a psyche healthy
is not a one-person job,
and I was so young.
It just appeared one day—
I didn’t even know 
I’d been carrying
it inside my head, thought the
extra weight of my thoughts
was just another migraine 
gone wrong.

I didn’t know it would cry
so much, keep me up all night,
demand every minute
of my time, wanting to be fed,
needing to be changed...
Lord, more than an hour
without a change and that mind
would stink up the whole house.
Sometimes it just cried
for no reason at all,
refusing to be soothed.

It got to be too much
for a girl like me to handle.
That mind drove me to drink.
Towards the end, all I could afford
was cheap vodka.
It would sleep for awhile,
but wake up screaming
louder than ever.

Finally, one night after the booze
made it warm and sleepy,
I set my thoughts on the steps of a church,
wrapped in an old quilt.
I left no note or instructions.
What would I have said,
anyway?

Insomnia

Tiny bones, those splinters
that form wrist, thread together hand,
little pins that hold flesh to form,
like fabric and batting, my quilted body.
These calcium shards betray and sting
they ache with love, moan my name
while I sleep, until I wake, say
hush, hush, hush

_____

Kris Bigalk's poetry has recently appeared in Dust and Fire and The Barefoot Muse. She teaches writing in Minneapolis.