Kimberly Swendson

Kimberly Swendson is a poet and translator from Colorado. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame and her MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. Her work can be found in The Heavy Feather Review, Bruiser Magazine, ephemeras magazine, and elsewhere.

[ Cabin and Pine ]

The evening is deep and I am extracting a thin tooth from another, thinner tooth. There is no beauty
here, just a cold hearth. A metallic twinge on my lip. The porch is made up of more sound than
anything else. We are becoming diluted. We laugh and laugh and we are having sons. We are laughing
and having sons. We have stashed their heads in little bags beneath the porch. From behind the
plastic they gnash their teeth. Lined up one by one and watching.
In time, they will eat every piece.

[ Burn Your Ladies! ]

Hey boy-watch, see me
wear my insides like a
crown.
Take that
and eat what you make of it
Feet on the wrong way round, he casts
his lot skyward.
When his insides
happen, they happen
silently
I relish in the pap pap pap pap I
ruffle it up.
Let me pick up your baby, let me
pick it up farther!
These little fat boys
shit twice and don’t look,
release
that moisture unto me
I become the one
toward which all other days
bend