Les Fenêtres
by Kristina Marie Darling

We drive to a window factory and traverse its rooms, the summer night pale as the steeple of a church. Behind each door, you dust locks, turn hinges, dragging your signal flares and your phosphorus glow. A yellow light catches spots in each pane as we count the saints on dim clerestories. Soon I ask, one word at a time, mouthing into the watery dusk: Est-que je ne suis pas une fenêtre? You turn from the work, appalled, our reflections like sand burning into glass. A porous moon stares through the doorframe. The locks say nothing.  

Kristina Marie Darling is a graduate student at Washington University. She is the author of six chapbooks, among them Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006), The Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006), and Night Music (BlazeVOX Books, Forthcoming). Recent awards include residencies at the Centrum Foundation and Rockmirth.

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