Alie Kloefkorn

Hackberry Down

It is the first
part of home
to die:
a hackberry
felled by a late
summer storm.
A thousand miles
displaced, I wish
I could say
I felt the ground shake.

This Crowd Shocks

This crowd shocks a system weaned on the midnight
Commons: clamoring quiet, rat races in the stubbles
Of grass, a cold so deep breath threatens
To freeze the lungs that give it haven.

Where did all these people come from? These faces
Red in the bar light—how startling to see muscles shift skin
Into rills and mounds, flash teeth quick beneath grinning
Lip. There will be time, later, to confess transgressions
And the things that tense our chests at night. But here,
Now, aren’t we all newborns, flailing indiscriminately toward
Motion and sound and the sustenance of bodies all, all around.