Tuesday poem #502 : Kirstin Allio : Aphorism I.

 

 

Every woman is inside
Everyman, bathed in blood
Warm background noise the
Dial tone of memory.

  

Every man is an eye
Of the earth, says Frédéric
Bruly Bouabré, but
Not every woman gives birth

  

To herself by a certain
Alphabet, uncertainty how
Most of us feel about dying in the shadows
Of the ribbed pillars of destiny. Not

  

To put too fine a point
On the unknown, knowing
We still have to feed, but
When the child is more nostalgic

  

For childhood than the mother you get
A monster. 89% of survey monkeys
Say interruptions cause connection
To falter. A little

  

More starch per square inch,
The stretch sounds
Synthetic, like
Velcro, reversal

  

Of referent, re-do
Of nature, nurture’s
Aftermath: nothing
That isn’t held holds.

 

 

 

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.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan