Vestigial Home
I weep for you mucus-slathered mollusk feelers seeking the home you’ve never reached your body its own inland sea undulates in waves slow as the night my mother’s breath left the earth
you terrestrial gastropod prey of tennessee middle-schoolers delirious with briny purpose you creep on never able to outrun their shakers treacherous as hungry guillotines assassins poised mid-air
but aren’t we all on the hunt for a spectacle celestial rivers primordial pull the force halting my mother’s heart works on my own minute after minute hers brimming with tragedy and love in equal parts my own
an appetite for perfection a sieve of lost time its tiny holes whistle in mandalas of memory as everything calls for our death at dusk I sit on my porch watch your passage sister slug peerless in determination I measure my own distance to creep
you matriarch of seekers your trail is nothing if not longing a glittering witness left behind the hope of unseen power an invocation of the first whorl
Oubliettes
I. no one says revolver any more the perpetrator drew his revolver and fired into the crowd
II. I’ve heard someone say that bravery is hope with fangs I say I only know it by its feel You told me once my poetry had teeth I want you to want to fold me over and over again until I fit in your palm curl your fingers around me seal me in with your thumb overlapping I’ll be a stone lodged inside your shoe you’ll always feel my heat even in sleep I’m there if you put me in your pocket even if you forget my name
III. you said it looked good on me you meant the whiskey little something fancy in my glass in my veins the way I can drink most men just can’t keep up the night the weight of the clouds waiting to release their secrets onto the both of us I didn’t hear your description the process the birth of whiskey from grain to mash to cask to my glass The details you delineated wort and wash yeast and heat never reached my ears I couldn’t hear you above the moonlight Moved the candle closer to conjure a glimpse to catch in your eyes what I hadn’t seen in years
IV. I tell you the story of how I dared the semi driver to barrel his truck all 18 wheels of it straight toward my throat fast as possible to get close as a kiss while I stood in the street in the middle like a milky dream how I’d flatten my arms at my sides stay animal still eyes wild opened rabbit hearted hoping to be grazed just this once by the speed of an object in passing
Kari Ann Ebert is the winner of the 2020 Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry and the 2018 Gigantic Sequins Poetry Contest, Kari’s work has appeared in journals such as The Night Heron Barks, Free State Review, Mojave River Review, Philadelphia Stories, The Main Street Rag, The Ekphrastic Review, and Gargoyle as well as several anthologies. Her honors include a residency at Virginia Creative Center for the arts (2021), Individual Artist Fellow in Literature: Poetry, Delaware Division of the Arts (2020), and fellowships from MidAtlantic Arts Foundation (2021), The Shipman Agency (2020), BOAAT Press (2020), and Brooklyn Poets (2019). Her limited-edition chapbook Alphabet of Mo(u)rning is available from Lily Press. Kari is a member of the Holly Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, and is an active member of the Dover, Delaware arts community.