Watershed

Down here at the hurricane
barrier street trees
in strappy heels 
fish of the night
with antifreeze eyes
run-off
tide pools 
front like black gold.

Sysco trucks
rattle loose gills
par avion panty
hose bushed
in a clothesline of leaves
salt-cod condoms
bacalau of old gods 

a death’s-head with parched 
hair bobs by.

Cake box
sippy cup
small-time 
Styx of trash
baby lodestar
pull-tab
creviced where the water 
still warps
and wefts
and cans in lanes
of moonlight
shimmy open
mouthed.

ξ

Kirstin Allio is the author of the novels Garner (Coffee House Press) and Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa Press), and the short story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). Poems are recently out or forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Bat City Review, Bennington Review, Conjunctions, Fence, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, and others; she’s closing in on a collection. She lives in Providence, RI. https://www.kirstinallio.com