Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Kirstin Allio : Two poems

 

 

 

                     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.