By: Kaitlyn Airy
allotment
like the flowering stain on a blouse or a dog-eared book
you change me when I press thumb to sand
the frothing waters stir no whorl remains the thought
of amniotic fluid keeps me up at night can you hear
those tiny fingers the devouring mind is no different
you must cut the grain you must burn the fat chop
the wood consult clouds I spill a sack
of oranges on the table soft spheres a navel this deliberate
undressing when the ghost inside me looks back I taste
the tang of salt she had the right idea Edith
those galloping flames those writhing cities I lick
my plate clean sunlight through gauzy curtains small
gusts of air fir trees shiver in our yard starlings glimmer
like pools of oil tar-black & shiny green or magenta
ravaging the coneflowers I turn into a pillar of wifeliness
you close the window press into me to bruise
the fading rose to prune the withered vine
ours to take ours to toil you could kill me
with that ledger I can almost taste the wine
housing a pregnant rabbit
momma belly-flops on hardwood floor white muzzle chinning
oak shelves & smooth table scratching the sage green wall long toothed
snacking on The Plague existential tatters you can scare a rabbit
to death she’ll need that funnel-shaped hidey-hole shriveled
stubs of carrot flanks of straw that nice ukranian family
would like to know if we make stew american girl will eat
roast fish and pheasant but keep bunny indoors hysterical someday
I’ll find that wandering womb those shell-pink walls that long
tunnel tear out clumps of my own fur someday I will touch babies
with my human oils fearing matricide & what could be more human
what could be more american this constant hunger this quiet labor
those prying eyes
Kaitlyn Airy grew up in the San Juan Archipelago off the coast of Washington state. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and Gonzaga University, and currently lives in Spokane, Washington where she interns for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry. In 2020 Elizabeth Austen selected her poem "DMZ" as the winner of the Phyllis L. Ennes Poetry Contest. She has work forthcoming in Crab Creek Review & elsewhere.