Kathleen Hellen
Heat
i live in her scent in this pen's seminary
devise the express, from hole to a hydrant
to sniff—
That wag of a bitch, would she stop her toy-tailing
if i choked on a length of rope?
From crook in the spine my paws dig the doing
through layers of top, the roots
i think it will be soon—
The stone exploding
The stink of the marigolds
Once, in a Yellow Wood
After Frost
The double-yellow swam beneath the wake of tractor-trailers.
The grey mimicked rain. Headlights wrestled fog.
It was the morning of a very bad decision.
I could say I had it coming. I could say I was unhappy.
A girl with a grudge. A woman on the back road to perdition
The sudden leaves spoke up. They said I'd gone too far to
find the road that took me back.
O, foot to the clutch
Wheels
in the sky appeared. Each intersecting a wheel
I rode the rock-face 'til I dropped. Slid into the do-si-do of
angels. The grim one on the right was spitting plug.
The other, hob-nail clogging
I was small inside calamities.
Collision
in my weight when the mountain opened up
I kicked through the crystal windshield.
A stunt like Houdini's. My shoulder with wing, flighted
The day mimicked light.
A whiff
before the explosion
Bio
Kathleen Hellen is a poet and the author of The Girl Who Loved Mothra (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in Barrow Street; Cimarron Review; the Cortland Review; The Evansville Review; the Hollins Critic; In Posse Review; Prairie Schooner; RHINO; Subtropics; among others; and on WYPR’s “The Signal.” Awards include the Washington Square Review, James Still and Thomas Merton poetry prizes, as well as individual artist grants from the state of Maryland and Baltimore City. She is senior editor for The Baltimore Review.