Allison Titus

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT KINGDOM

 

Are you animal, then—

 

are you gallop                scape

 

of          fringecup & wood-sorrel & sweet

 

after death                     are you rove the pines          are you plush

 

the thicket—

 

Body goes in a flash         in a fever in a rush, scrapping

 

Body goes all this time

 

Goes hooked to the ache   & seasons          standing in the pits,

 

junk carnival long                gone just the outskirts then            the outskirts

 

around that                     What kingdom of death is this?

 

dust of the outfield, the loose split,

 

we surplus          & hostage the meat of your plenty.

 

No-name electric, harness & shackle.

 

All those summers Body left to un

 

creature.            The dig & gnaw of waiting

 

was a plague.

 

Nobody came, nobody came.

 

Allison Titus is the author of two poetry collections, Sum of every lost ship (CSU) and The True Book of Animal Homes (Saturnalia; forthcoming), and the novel The Arsonist’s Song Has Nothing To Do With Fire (Etruscan).