KIRSTEN IHNS

bap tart powerglide 

 

the shape receives its alien guests—honors and devours them
               /hold still, i like to be generous

               then i get that
 /immobility of a sentiment which has swallowed whole rabbits/
                             i see farther is a thing from you

               i see your salivary power glide
                             do some donuts
                                                           in the donut shop
                                                                                            parking lot
                /hot

                             i think let me live like a terrible thing all year
                                          a swarm of little inconsistent objects, passing on the stage
                  as the stage
                                                        then off           

                /would you feel me in your chest
clatter down your labored respiration
                             i reproduce by kind permission

                                                         and can i place you in this ghost
                                           let you fur me very feely
                                                         touch expensive for no reason
                                                                       splashing in the neon dream of satin sheets and peanut
                                                         butter toast—
                                                                                     it comes again
                             i like to draw it out
                                           in the object matter of relation
                                                                                                    leaf matter
                                           litter, let’s take it slow
                             where even the showboat climbs your household

so many things i prefer to self control

 

            one thing is certain: the rest is lies

            i couldn’t put its significance anywhere

so i left it out

            and the birds took it away, made nests out
of it i released some birds into a corner
called time
            is the dream where you move

            at several various

            speeds at once

by the time it got out of the pool i was completely in existence
which takes place under an aspect of the pool

            ruthless, i drag it out of the pool to expose it to time

mostly, i prefer to stay in the pool
says the aspect

            running toward the trash heap, the pool ran
in one exclusive direction
because of the heat, sometimes even god uses a visit to the pool

and the answer is it

i attached the point of the pool to a shaft
            and dispatched it through the air as an arrow

                           anne-marie did not receive it
                                          Y’ALL, THE SINGER IS DONE WITH IT
                                                        she does not want some sparkling water

cavity instructional

 

give the candy and flowers to someone who eats them

              press the mouth to the incision, say into it
                            rose salt of the gray himalaya
                 cross into notwithstanding

                                                                     deploy the kitchen weapon
                                                       past what threshold expectation
              describes:

                                         rising like a purse surface
                                                       take the orders of a lawless process
                                            keep them faithfully, and with you

              at all times
                           do you have leopards or chocolate for sale, and how about
                                          a string indecency, mad apple bubble
              gum, cheese, cups for the large ice, cleanliness

              let’s dismount the beach of our kind new vision
                            sleep

                                                         the kind you can stay in

                                                                       i don’t have any problem
                                                                                      i have a lot of experience

                                                         i have a fantasy, about tetanus
                                                                       it goes like this:

                                                                       the crush injury
                                                                       the injury with dead tissue
                                                                       the jaw inhabits the true miracle fixity
                                                         the surveillance for clinicians
                                                                                      the tightness, non-entrance
                                                                       the witness the witness
                                                         and machines, to help you breathe

deep sea sunday

 

you know i love to ask for mercy

but on the lawn, ice is not, assuredly, sea creatures

/so they tell me

i was watching you, too, though i was

              the one that was fake looking?
       that fish is called a sturgeon

daddy or nobody else

they still don’t know what that noise was and it moves

activities we can do while the moon

on a clear night

over a long expanse of lawn

shines. the monster squid
from #4 can be a colossal squid
because it was much bigger
than a giant squid or

sunbeams, what if i don’t get to talk to you

               in all this good lighting

        we have?

                and in what body would you keep it? let it out
         snap its leash, lay my fine life at its regular feet

always Photo Shop their photos when it includes the hugest animals

on this topic meanwhile, i’ll tell you, what do sunfish taste like?

              can i order it to eat it?
              can i order it to eat naturally?
              can i order it to eat any object?

number three looks like a Stur Gene, photo shopped, i think

it was to include huge animals, that we did it

              meant no harm to any creature, any fancy vision

she communicated extremely clearly: “let us go out then, and dance”

i invite the lightning in, i make it tea

and who would leave such a splendid chance? i’m for scientific options
and the splendor of a wicked tune

snapped over the lined-up

              no, it was merely some kind of stride you were

      walking through

              Hackchetfish are found in Finding Nemo

              Penguins aren’t sea creatures, they’re birds!

              i like how you sound

              so enthusiastic

but why can’t

anyone hold their camera steady?

                                                                        i went to the man who was in charge
and found him like a sordid conclusion

                                                          you don’t have to develop your photo shop in the dark

                             any more

i said, removing the pins around the door

speaking very slowly

              why are octopuses goo, at war

i said and dropped the last and wait

in the sudden light i couldn’t see his face

              are you doing just fine?

              i could have fired this water

              clear across the dry

rattling sound the sun would make as it streamed

i swear a whole sunbeam in my eye

‘s the only thing that stopped me

              you’re a liar, said the man in charge
              almost like a person does,
              walking his stride through the whole damned door
              on the leash i had snapped and left on the
              grass

              we were outside, after all

Kirsten Ihns is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and is currently a Ph.D. student and Neubauer Presidential Fellow in English Literature at the University of Chicago, where she studies texts that seem to want to be images, and works on the poetry staff of the Chicago Review. Winner of the 2016 Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize (judged by Hoa Nguyen), and the 2018 Ron Offen Poetry Prize (judged by Duriel Harris), her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review (online),  inter|rupture, The Offing, Yalobusha Review, Black Warrior Review, BOAAT, theme-can, New Delta Review, TAGVVERK, and elsewhere. She is from Atlanta, GA.