4 Poems

Katie Hibner

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

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.