KATHERINE FALLON

Katherine Fallon is the author of DEMOTED PLANET (Headmistress Press, 2021)
and The Toothmaker's Daughters (Finishing Line Press, 2018). She is Lead Poetry
Editor at MAYDAY Magazine and reads for [PANK]. Her poems have appeared in
AGNI, Colorado Review, Juked, Meridian, Foundry, and Best New Poets among
others. She shares domestic space with two cats and her favorite human, who
helps her zip her dresses.

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Fear

Late spring, an elk stuck fast to the barbed wire,
her soft belly white and undulating like a sail
in violent winds. Nothing to do but watch her

quit herself. She'd have killed who tried
to save her, and so we gave her no chance
to refuse us. Dead of fright we knew we made

worse, her eyes went milky as cocktail onions,
just one nearly bloodless nick upon the ribs.






Primrose Path

I took her, wrapped
in a glimpse of what

life can be: our bodies
and so many voices.

I remember her
in the photo booth,

hurt, and yes,
I dragged across her

this morning. My old
mouth moved smoothly.

Because how sad. To not
feel as good as I want.






False Advertising

Not what you thought: the long dark days,
the doll eyes, glazed with or without help.

I'll never say I can't change, am only lame
and waiting to impress you anew. You knew,

but have forgotten: you find me worth it.
You'd like me more if you liked me more.






Dynasty

Because you are ill, I will
take this knife and slice

the meat of my hip to salt,
to braise, to feed and save you.

I have snapped the tendons
from a sow's wet bones,

stared at the flat, wicked
plane of the scar upon your

tricep, known that someday,
I, too, might be fed, flesh

served to me beside a green,
your skin cold with sweat

upon the silken scab
of re-generation.

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