an extinction

my ballad, a DIY jail                     a habit to loofah away
 
go                       foil my maw                      that igloo
 
               got a whiff of a god                     who’d had a pity body
 
my iBody                       my iGloom                       my moot womb
 
I’m told             that llama tattoo will molt                       what of it
 
a data-lag will add to a doom motif                     my pallid lamb, my blight
 
                                          flood of my pathway                  I paid
 

             pivot                    joy might fail                   oh
 
that oddity       joy                        oh, oh                 I’m all jolt
 
            both/with                                        oh          my lax math will do

Cover Art: Dunkelight, by Federico Federici

Kristi Maxwell

Kristi Maxwell’s seventh book of poetry, My My, came out with Saturnalia Books in 2020. Her work has been the editor’s choice selection for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize (Realm Sixty-four, Ahsahta Press) and the Saturnalia Poetry Prize (Hush Sessions, Saturnalia). She is a 2022-23 American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellow and Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville.

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