Four Poems – Yalobusha Review

THERE IS A SINGLE MOMS’ COLONY

on a roughaged planet
in a new england barn

they coat
self-expression
optic

proceed to spade
orgone
from the dendritic floor

orbit
a beam
rugose
with thanksgiving
while sighing out

collective shibboleth

a man in heat
harvests
the paper plates

STRAW MAN

The think tank paid for Scarecrow’s commute. They hired him last January; it was in his contract. By the time the car rolled up to his field each morning, he was already halfway through a Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit. The crows were absent. He analyzed voters in the Breadbasket. His desk clock was heart-shaped. He hung a medal in his cubicle. Phil poked fun at his postcard from Dorothy. It was coquettish, and it had a lipstick stain. Scarecrow never got promoted. Phil and Angie did. Scarecrow kept at his work. Scarecrow kept delaying his ride home. Scarecrow kept awake. They swept up his remains last December. His straw insides were flooded with espresso.

CODE BLUE

I study at The Marine Institute

I ink every yaw’s path onto my cot

I skin philanthropy for the hunk of good gut

I cuddle a pillow shaped like Euripides

I rework the hairs of the faculty
I treasure them as sage hyphae

I improvise a roast
I rub it with artistic license

I check the colloquial mail socket every day
You better write me back tomorrow as Paul Bunyan
I’m the ox
I warn you it’ll be code blue when
You ax open
this cetacean lung

EARTH, KEPLER 452b

when a new planet swims into our ken
with threats of superior lifeforms:

self-quarantine in a freckled duplex

veiling bleach over our pingback psalter

cardinal-feather shunt swarming with topophiliacs
and prayed-to histamines

initialing the belly of the cow-monger

sponges of breadcrumbs

attempts to fork out a quilted layer
to dog this quadrant

recommissioned reflex mallets

integers scalped
by a braid of musk

but still, hiring pseudo-cabinets to negotiate with crust-language
and bats

a hopscotch game pearls
unnoticed
on the tease
of an ironic eyebrow

KATIE HIBNER is a confetti canon from Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in Bone Bouquet, inter|rupture, Timber, TINGE, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Vinyl. Katie has read for Bennington Review, Salamander, and Sixth Finch. She dedicates all of her writing to the memory of her mother and best friend, Laurie.