Matter and Pattern
I.
Rain crawls, dulls its claws on the aluminum siding.
Crows net the bare tree, speak for it.
Suede and leather turkeys back from the seamstress pick the silver out of seeds.
II.
Desertification despite plumbed irrigation, dead zones of touchless trees.
Birds don’t bury their dead in feathers of clouds. Dead birds don’t drop from the sky.
Leave leaves to mat and molder. Care more for worms for birds than lawn care.
III.
It was stern weather. If I went out for a walk, it would be with a long face, I might nod but not speak out loud to my neighbors. The trees were in agreement. There was no playing around, no tickling or kissing. The birds were switched off, the sidewalks were solid, the cars were using the voices of their various dads.
In Which the Normal is Exceptional
I stopped on the ledge
to watch the work
of startup beavers
below, full
grown trees teethed
to spear points.
The need to break
skin. Typical rash
pattern of the lyric, nature
as interlude, psyche as poet
instagrams like little
Las Vegases, stripped
down under
studies for
the sud
den end.
Kirstin Allio received the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize from FC2 for her new story collection, Double-Check for Sleeping Children, coming out in 2024. Previous books are the novels Garner (Coffee House Press), Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa), and the story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). Her awards and honors include fellowships from Brown University’s Howard Foundation and MacDowell. She lives in Providence, RI.
