Kristen Brida
Kristen Brida's poetry has appeared in The Journal, Barrelhouse, Fairy Tale Review, Hobart, Whiskey Island, Pidgeonholes, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from George Mason University.
Diet Crisis
I did the dishes for the first time in nine days
But there were only two plates and five forks in the sink
And after I cleaned those
I just stared at the drain
For seven minutes and watched
The tap water gush its translucence and vomit
Soggy Doritos and charred egg whites
And scraps of Lean Cuisine dinners
And I watched them float
Like microbial shits blossoming in a petri dish
Or potential little things refusing to turn
To acid in my stomach
And then I hit the disposal switch
It was so nice
To just hear a machine
Pretend itself a body
With excremental capabilities
It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten
To thinking without words
The Blue Parts with Anthony Bourdain
Rowboat cozy
up with postcard
ocean. The kind color
with its sheer
sight transports salt
wrapped air
from water to blue
light of my television.
When our host swims deep
through the mouth-dark blue
for food, there is nothing
but sponges, reef rot, people
with cameras to pan.
A lack of earth-worth
film. A fisherman throws in
dead squids. They float around
our host, their shiny deaths
halo around him, boxed in ice
a little while, until
salt licks then eats ice exposes
and preserves the soft muscle
of the grocery dead. Our host lets
them float free
in a parody of breath
as they swallow all features.
Our host looks up to the light
sees hands deliver the ice.
Out host says “I”
so much it burns through
it, loses an antecedent.
Back at the blue light,
The fisherman rows to shore
to bash the squids
against rocks as children watch.
The fisherman tells them to soften
the squid’s skull to make its body
palatable raw.