Covenant
I was stuck
behind a welding
truck. I wasn’t
late but lately
I’d felt I was
in the hot
seat, stretched
too thin by my
very own
skin, a she-wolf
shifted
from forest to
field
to line, despite
it being an extra
ordinarily banal
year.
Caution, Do Not
Watch Arc, which
forced me to
confront
complicity in a
complex
social contract,
yays
and nays became
days
and days under
spell
check. At the risk
of chamber pop, I
chafe
at warnings woven
on death’s teeth,
traffic
was backed up
by now for blocks
of brake lights.
Live coals
lit from deep
inside the ark.
Outlay
The inability to
project (smoke signals)
And predict (to
add weight, use stone)
Betrays an
unwillingness to entertain
The stars
(past-present-future in a single optic)
Is anything more
than just
A whoosh? Yes,
I assure my
Father, I worry
About annihilation
too,
The omniscience of
being totally
Doomed. No wonder
The stars feel
Slighted.
He feels better
When he’s out
laying stone,
Laying waste
To invasives
(bitter
Sweet and ash).
Chipping yearling
Trees where the
path
Sags with ground
Water.
Kirstin Allio’s books are the novels Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa) and Garner (Coffee House), and the short story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). Her writing appears recently in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Bennington Review, Changes Review, Conjunctions, Epiphany, Fence, Guernica, New England Review, Plume, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She has received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and fellowships from Brown University’s Howard Foundation and MacDowell. She lives in Providence, RI.
