A Poem by Kelli Allen

Perhaps Wolves

I may be the animal with paws

half-buried in mud. I am afraid

To be this fertile white-furred

hound moving with more dampness

Than courage. Where is it written

that my own sharp toes make

Conversation with soft grass

impossible? I am resigned to dirt

And am full of wobbly longing.

Oh, pups, your pull under my belly,

Has brought me thick with milk

to pause alive, tired. Nothing

My tongue transmits against

your tufty ears will make you learn

It doesn’t last, none of it, but it is easy

to forget, here, over wet ground.

 

 

 

Kelli Allen is an award-winning poet, editor, and scholar. Her poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Echo Ink Review, Poetry Quarterly, Fjords, Abridged, Other Poetry,Lyre Lyre, The Blue Sofa Review, WomenArts Quarterly, The Caper Review, It Has Come to This: Poets of the Great Mother Conference, Foliate Oak, Greatest Lakes Review, Lugh Review (where she was the featured author), Blackmail Press, The Chaffy Review, Euphonyand elsewhere. She has been the featured poet for Desperanto Press’s segment“Tea With George” for September 2011. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the 2011 Rebecca Lard Award. She is the author of two chapbooks (Applied Cryptography; Picturing What Breaks) and has served as the Managing Editor of Natural Bridge. She is also the founder of the Graduate Writers Reading Series for the University of Missouri St. Louis. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, is forthcoming from Fjords New Book Series October of 2012. www.kelli-allen.com