A Poem by Kelli Allen

It’s a hidden, lungless stone, this waiting.
Whitebait might be emblematic of an immaturity

you still carry in the bulge of your knees, the way
you swallow after speaking, after nodding in agreement.

Tell me, iron smith, man of coals and grinding,
what did you expect after I took you in, closed

your thin waist with the parenthesis of my thighs?
The reflection between my legs ate you right on up.

We still tell each other into flatness, into a stream
populated with sleeping trout. I am sending you away

with a quilt, a goat’s pure stomach, and rough lapis.
The corpse of our longing gets fed after shutting the door.

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals/anthologies in the US and internationally. Allen is the founding editor of Book of Matches Literary Journal. Allen’s new collection, Banjo’s Inside Coyote, arrived from C&R Press March, 2019.