From “The Sky Forever” [reenact reincarnate the earthquake]
reenact reincarnate the earthquake
on the long return to your bed
iamb tendril threading fretted fingers strummed purr crest into soft pang
landing buzz stomach pit’s nervy light radius
compass me
snaking infinite under ink
kin planar prisms of eyelids
bloomed lip landscape plaid
under brim look at me ancestral
hollows invaded millennia
dwell binding curtains closed eyes
now intimate idioms
Copyright © 2018 Kimberly Alidio. This poem originally appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review. Used with permission of the author.
Kimberly Alidio
Kimberly Alidio, a poet, essayist, historian, and teacher, is the author of five poetry collections: Traceable Relation (Fonograf Editions, 2025); Teeter (Nightboat Books, 2023), winner of both the Nightboat Poetry Prize and the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry; why letter ellipses (selva oscura, 2020); : once teeth bones coral : (Belladonna*, 2020), a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; and after projects the resound (Black Radish, 2016).