First time
A buffet of young flesh,
fresh off of the plane...
The dark room smells of mold
and pesticides, men,
and Lucky Strike clouds.
Her body held against damp sheets,
she can't leave;
The weight of the manacles
pin her down tight.
She was singled out.
Her countenance soft,
she was made to feel special,
and then forcefully tamed.
Insignificant, her fingers
dig deep underground,
as she wishes and dreams
to just be the wasp on the wall.
Her fingers pinched
between the springs,
her hands grip tight.
Later with a bruised cheek
and black eye,
she's the ugly fruit for sale
on the market counter.
Descending into hell, her hair is pulled;
she's forced face down, restrained.
With neither names nor handshakes,
this is just a business exchange.
By Kristina Blaine
Kristina Blaine reads "First time"
Kristina Blaine
Kristina Blaine is a 2007 graduate of The Ohio State University. She is currently earning her MFA in poetry at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and recently completed a residency at Trinity College in Dublin. In her other life, Kristina is a lead researcher for The Center for Neuropolicy and the Computation and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Emory University. In addition to her current work in Fjords Review, her poetry may be found in Burningword Quarterly Literary Magazine and forthcoming in The Broken Plate.
Work for Monthly Verse is selected through our editorial process. New poems are selected from authors that submitted work for the last issue. Read more authors by subscribing to Fjords.