The Vote Enters the Kingdom
For the women of Saudi Arabia
Swaddled in her robes
my dawning cry
celebrates this breath
I am a check mark
a chad
a box finally filled
a spell
a veiled glance
a hook's earthy meat—
cast me
Climb
Somewhere in Kentucky a forsythia
offers its yellow echo to the sun.
A long-haired woman haunts a window,
wonders what to do with an hour,
how to outlast the day,
follows a jet's silver glint in the dull sky.
She opens the curtain to more light,
but only questions wash the room.
How often do we look up
for warmth, beauty, answers?
Do we ache the bird's easy wing,
the chic of god's tongue
as we propel ourselves
into the star-blind wild,
dreaming that vast
and oh so incredible blue?
Bionote
Allison Thorpe is a writer from Lexington, KY. Recent chapbooks include Dorothy's Glasses (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and What She Sees: Poems for Georgia O'Keefe (White Knuckle Press, 2015). A Pushcart nominee, she has appeared in such journals as The Citron Review, South 85 Journal, Appalachian Heritage, Misfit Magazine, Two Hawks Quarterly, Gingerbread House, Big River Poetry Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, The Meadow, and Meat for Tea: The Valley Review.