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).