The young and lovely

Bridget Arsenault

Bridget Arsenault is a twenty-two year old graduate student at Oxford University. During her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts, she won the Gertrude Posner Spencer Prize for excellence in fiction writing awarded by Smith College, the Sylvia Plath Memorial Award, an annual intercollegiate writing contest for poetry and prose, and the Smith College Excellence in English Award. These are the first poems she has published.

The Nightself

Swallow the sun
to bring the night.
the smell of blood,
crisp and wet, like
rusted pipes and
sewery veins hangs
in the room
the battlefield of this
primitive surgery.
Thick musk—leather and soot, shrouds
first the torso, then
the thigh,
over the calf and to the tip
of the pinky toe.
Pulverize the beautiful
acerbic charm
luring from the corner.
An echo of a howl claws
the room, side
to side
rotting from the inside
out.

In the Eyes of the Tiger

Hands the size of teacups
never chainsaws
Her once loved face
crumbles
She blinks with thick compliance
He still finds her
beauty
___in a certain light

Etiquette Lessons in San José

Flying overhead watching San José
become a toy
city, then a geometric blob
Her glassy-eyed pieties
her tanned bare feet like sandpaper
against brittle pavement
her head throbs her head throbs her head throbs
the unrefined staccato of her taste; their
buttery thighs tied up in knots
his threads of grey
a conversational trope like the stock market
her chiseled heart
Day trips to El Carmen and San Sebastián
an evening at the Teatro Nacionel, after
a Gold Museum, before
an oak-paneled laundry room

The Wedding

She loved music
thick, rough, grinding, heavy, gripping, pounding, music
the charisma of a C major, the lure of an F sharp
rag, blues, funk, A cappella, rock, rhythm
sweat, man, spittle, whiskey, morning after—smells
A pock mark where
the music’s been removed
now she finds darkness wrapped in a large handkerchief
the ugliness of the night undressed
beer un-suctioning thighs
Wince
Cigarettes and wedding bands
humming in white only
a Chocolate Lake
space touching her
flowers rotted like flesh
throw rocks
throw anything
Chink
Eyes closed to concentrate
lost in a pot hole on the Trans Canada
tall trees
tall men
a room full with colours of people
fuchsia, tangerine, saffron, crimson and pistachio
Discard.

Answers Like Filling in a Questionnaire

Answers like filling in a questionnaire
___If only they’d been more tolerant
A voice high and unstable
Pulsing tongues in junior high bathrooms
Credit for courage?
Leggy girls in summer clothes
___If only they’d encouraged me more
Chapped lips flake like grated cheddar
Personalities subsumed like phagocytes
and molecules.
Warm palms brush then slither
___If only they’d been more strict
Mattressy eyebrows
Suspiciously perfect teeth
Wear lower heels next time.
Electric feel—Monochrome to Technicolour
___If only they’d applauded me for the right things.
Battle wounds from vampire
neck bites
What a farce.


Mental Incest

The preliminary version of my own life is sticky, sloppy, syrupy and soupy like concentrated pink lemonade. I find myself goaded to anger at the slightest tickle, the most inconsequential prick, any possible hint of animosity provokes audacity, vigorous hair-pulling, merciless arm-scratching, barbaric biting, I’m not above any of it; after tireless attempts to re-invent innocence I realize that throbbing heads, pulsing pelvic bones, red crayon lips and heavy black smoke thrilling the insides of dank moist lungs isn’t exactly innocent. Is innocence pliable like the hinge of a jaw, the span of two wings, the axis of two meaty thighs? Ultimately my thoughts lead to heavy moping, despondent shrugs towards emptiness, my aim for a coercive gesture hangs frivolously, unnoticed, untouched, unkempt like rich, chunky, matted, sweaty hair. You know language can express what a face knows, your primitive astonishment, your pedantic approach, which you claim is the prologue, simply lateral thinking, only excuses, hazy, amorphous, shadowy covers for residual guilt. In fact, your vitriolic spits of languid vocabulary express far too much, like how freshly mown grass is too perfect, unnaturally placid, inexplicably manicured, unnecessarily groomed. I’m picturing you, bated cherry breath, lascivious curving torso OK, caught in the filthy act, that’s me not you, a schoolgirl posing as a harlot, a vixen, a tramp, a hussy, a call girl, a slattern from generations past. Or is it the other way around—a tart acting as a schoolgirl? A whore play-acting as a debutante? Florescent thoughts parachute my snappy ‘take-it-away’ attitude, Ah the oppressive mother, the distant mother, the over-loving mother, has she sharpened her exacting scythe? Has she shined its spiny, scalloped edge? Wicked the erudite commentary from within her lava-hot, frosted-alabaster, cavernous throat—dank, acerbate, curdled stench and all. Lest we not forget her preternatural desire for love: a love rhombus, love in iambic pentameter, a gargantuan dollop of foamy, frothy love. Of course, there are the pursed kisses like raspy shards of metal from her porcelain jaw, that rope of mucus, gelatinous, swollen, opaque, and spongy like a jellyfish. Her immutable humiliation of my mundane memories, why not shove my banal thoughts down my paper-mâché throat like tentacles, pulsing and prying with porcine inaccuracy? Why not?