Abi Pollokoff

billow & pulse

what vertebrae’s the one that
makes the tide tremble.
saltspined & ringed in gold
threads. tipsy with light & iron
at the throat.

here in the in betweens this
body all styled with
wildflowers. with lilies.
phosphorescent under
sunmurk. the body the bridge
with its tendons. all aglint. all
a simmering dimglow.

hard things & soft things. hard
things & soft things. hard
things & soft things &
spongesilt in the riverbed. how
to tend to the body when all
that’s left is what’s made to
bristle. to settle in.

•

along the crestline, crushed
oystershells. & within the lungs
a pearl. when the air is an
allergy what’s left but to stretch
it into unexistence. the
unraveling into its grey matter
& softening—

here the body made of all
these gold threads grey now
dimmering & dimmer. beds of
something nettled across
floodmarked calves & pockets
of electric blessings. here,
bless. here, bless. here, river
that knows to contain itself in
neon.

& to contain. to unwrap itself
around its boundaries & warp
itself over. spine split down the
middle & peeled open. what’s
left of the self when the self is
what’s left & there’s no light to
see by. & always leaning.

•

glisten & glimmerslipped. into
curve & clayshape. where is
the tide not seeping. crawling
itself over pebble & silt. hard
things & soft things. hard
things & soft things. hard
things & soft things all
underskinned.

what’s the curve of the knee
without the wrist to mirror it.
what’s left to summon. the
ceiling of the river. the sealing
of the tide. in the dark the
hunger for the boundary. for
the rule to abide by. what
weightlessness in the throat
when there’s nothing to
swallow. to choke on.

even in the measuring in the
measured breath the vertebrae
ties itself with the tidings of
what’s been & been again. the
path now open. the gate now
breached. bankless under itself
& overing. the time is what’s
spoken & what’s missed.

•

lidded or lifted, can’t see the
salt or the blooming. not a
vertebral difference.
tendonbridged & what’s left to
question of it. the body & all its
soft things. skinhungering for
what’s willed at the wrist. what
will it. what it will.

threads & tipsed & flowerfaced
around its irons.

—no. with nothing to see by
but fingerprint & hairlilt the
body is made of eyes all over.
beacon & brimming.
selfsustaining into will &
what’s next. the rivering.
blanketworld wrapped its arms
around. hard things & soft
things. hard things & soft
things this body’s becomed.

saltstarched & sunken & in
every water rerounded. & in
every tongue—

________________________________________________________________________________________

Abi Pollokoff is a Seattle-based writer and book artist with work forthcoming or found in The Seventh Wave, EcoTheo, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest and Black Warrior Review, among others. She is a 2021 Jack Straw Writers Fellow, and she has also held fellowships or residencies from the Hugo House, the Seattle Review of Books and The Alice. Currently, Abi is the events manager for Open Books: A Poem Emporium and the managing editor for Poetry Northwest Editions, along with many other hats. She received her MFA from the University of Washington. Find her at abipollokoff.com.