Fragile Woman

This city, she stays up all night,

clawing at your bones to join her breathing exercise of lights.

She drops to her knees and begs you to dance with her legs,

the buildings with stockings and concrete skin.

 

At night, she whispers drunken bottles into your ears,

until she rises to a scream of sirens and honking cries,

made from every electrified track, every flick of a lighter,

every whistled catcall, and every pop through the thick air.

 

She is history, made from every marbled shore line,

every encompassed brick that survived her flames.

Her skin is made of shop windows,

arms made of tall houses lined by long streets and alleys of fall trees,

separated by lanes of garages and elementary schools.

Her torso, the glass lake on the horizon,

met with the sunset that makes up every last drop of skin on her heels.

But the lines of quiet traffic that live inside the streaks of light in her eyes,

those are my favorite parts of her body,

hidden like cloves inside the fingers of a glove.

 

Here, you are forced to study each line and groove of her body,

like a painting in a museum.

Here, you are forced to listen to every cry,

every glide of every street car wheel,

every laugh and groan her body makes when it moves.

Here, inside of the stillness of the eyes,

is where you fall into an electrified love large enough for millions.

---

Sydney Sargis is a student at Columbia College of Chicago majoring in Poetry. Her work can be found in The Writing Conference, Navigating the Maze 2016, Forest for the Trees, and UltraViolet Tribe. She is a previous co-editor for Teenage Wasteland Review, and a 2016 Scholastic Awards writing portfolio winner. Her interests include writing poetry, listening to records, and playing rugby.