by Alex Stevens
After Watching a Video of Vets Removing a Beach Towel From the Stomach of a Python I Notice That It’s Snowing
The coffin in my head is full of faces and they are mostly yours and only sometimes
mine. I measure everyone I meet for funeral
black and possibility, phone calls in the middle of the night I don’t answer,
too late
to stand in a field in my best tie or velvet dress,
depending. And here is where you’d tell me, ‘wear whatever the fuck you want.’
That everyone was here for you anyway, but please. Stop making me laugh, this is
serious. Every day you are breathing is a mercy. The bottle of pills still on the shelf.
The sidewalk instead of the double yellow
line. Every night you call me for a ride when you’ve been shooting pool
and tequila. I hit replay in another dark
parking lot. How must it feel to be all stomach, all raw esophagus, to lie still
with a stranger’s fingers in your mouth
and let them pull the sick out of you one foot at a time until you’re empty. I wait
with the car running, heater on high. There’s no use in asking how these things happen.
Originally from Georgia, Kenley Alligood now lives in the Upper Peninsula where she spends most of her time, coffee in hand, watching the snow fall. She is pursuing her MFA at Northern Michigan University where she is an associate poetry editor for Passages North. She can be found talking about music and women’s soccer on Twitter @alligood_k.
Alex Stevens is an artist living in Cardiff. His work lurks at the crossroads of science and magic; as an act of re-enchantment he wants to reveal demons in the blood, and eyes in the shadows. He can be found on Twitter @AbjectObjects