Poetry: Maxwell

POLE – ELOPE / HAUTE / ROAD – ADORE – ADORNED / ZOO – WOOZY / JAKE / WEE – WEEPY / CON – CANTO – CONTAIN / COG – CLOG / DAZE – GAZED – ZAGGED / GROAN – ROARING / FIAT / FAUX / VEIN – VENTI / ROE – JOKER / STY – MISTY / BRIE – BRIDE – BIRDIE / RENT – TUNER / LIP – PAIL

Kristi Maxwell

 
A road elopes with the horizon
above which the moon-sty bulges from the rim
of fog where my eye goes tonight.
To rent this view, that I might live in it.
To be a bride clogged with brie
and roe and adored
in the haute zoo
on the pole she’s claimed
to hang from. Slide down to me,
sidle up. Say birdie, birdie, birdie
songishly, and I’ll swear the voice
builds a sky for the purpose of my ears
hitching themselves there—adorned air.
The tuner is dazed.
A wee con wrecks the whole thing.
Weepy, we weep into a pail and lip it
to contain the weeping again
to beg it run through us
like a joker vein.
What you gazed, we called
Misty, we named faux in a woozy canto
groaned the way of a deeper ache.
For everything to be jake again
for us to josh around.
From ventish to roaring,
what needs out comes out.
Be a cog if you will. Be variegated
corn on a cob roasted and removed—
move my mouth. The best part of me
zigged and zagged:
a dividing line on a charm
two friends break apart
and share. Is that still a thing people do?
If not, let us propose a fiat
for the reinstatement of hearts
made purposeful in their mutilation.
 

FUNK / GREY / BIT – DEBIT – BAITED / TIRE – RELIT – TILLER / JAR / FLUX / ZOO – ZOOT / NAY – MANY / CODE – CHOWED / NOON / MILE – SIMILE / VALVE / WIFE / DOT – DOTE / TAKE – PACKET / BADGE / PUG / QUAIL / SEA – HEATS – HEARTS / OXEN / YIN / ZAG

Kristi Maxwell

 
A replicate of the burger Zagat so highly praised
sits jarred before me before I set it
before each guest to dote upon.
We chowed down miles of salt
over a number of years. Slopes and slopes.
My wife badgers my yin, and I take out
a wang. She baited me. I bade the pug
chase the funk and nay all similes
before noon. Things turn very masculine
when the oxen arrive—
because of our associations.
We turn things. Value seeks kinship
in valve, and there is a question
of how much one mind opens to another
and what controls the opening.
My brain-packet shakes and shakes
on what you dish out, which suggests
I cannot recover myself
but for the stomach of the world
churning us all and shooing
the bits toward the pathway
to abjection. I heard quail when quell
was meant and conjured the wrong zoo
to subdue myself. I tire at the till
asking credit or debit for each non-cash
exchange. The sea tires many
a tiller and greys in the eyeing. So much fails
to be hammered in. I accuse your hearts
of being oversized as zoot suits
and politically implicated by design.
A rebellious code stays in flux. What heats
is relit to do so—and does so
as evidenced by our own performances
of warmth. Curled up, we all become dots.
 
 

Kristi Maxwell is the author of “Re-” and “Realm Sixty-four,” both published by Ahsahta Press, as well as “Hush Sessions,” published by Saturnalia Books. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.