The scissors-man
I would like to ask you to let your hair grow — said my lover. You would look more feminine and this would excite me more. What he does not know is that my grandmother and mother promised me to the scissors-man. The scissors-man owns my hair and I. He dutifully visits me every night and cuts my locks. From my hair and his other slave girl’s honeyed strands his wife knits a special sweat cloth. With it he wipes her face clean.
Abstract with breasts and crocodile
In order to put a leash on their gaze, whenever she notices them staring at her breasts, Dora exposes the crocodile that nests in the hollow of her cleavage. With their gaze firmly tied they follow her like hypnotized zombies. She keeps them in kennels built on the outskirts of the city. Those who were lucky enough to escape from her spell report that the crocodile and Dora are one and the same person. They say that they saw her carrying baby crocodiles in her mouth.
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Réka Nyitrai is a spell, a sparrow, a lioness’s tongue — a bird nest in a pool of dusk. She is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2020 for her debut haiku volume “While Dreaming Your Dreams” (Valencia Spain: Mono Ya Mono Books, 2020). Her prose poems have appeared in Otoliths, Unbroken Journal, Pithead Chapel, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal, NOON: journal of the short poem, Obliterat Journal, and others.