Katelin Kelly
Winter 2023 | Poetry
Two Poems
Remembering Where the Water Has Been
—after CAConrad
ancient soul storm
unwanted flood
opening up the transits
and hot damns
tears and excess
late and moonlit trips
into the wooded stream
leaky wanderer
pooling crystal
stalactite messenger
wave wave wave
like an upending villain
your spit is the fossilized
windchime of your clouds
dinosaur spittle
midnight piss
the fluid that still sits inside
the poet’s dead stomach—
water?
wine?
the rushing rain down an alley drain
or the crest at the top of the tide?
Called Kentucky
A name wasn’t where I was born,
a commonwealth of mud-river eyes.
I could be put on signs, become a preacher,
cane and turkey land or dark and bloody ground
or land of tomorrow or no one knew.
Called bourbon for weeks before they called me
home-again, where gender is a patient
notion of forgiveness like bark
on a dogwood, a hair balancing
in Jell-O, names are secret.
Realized I was another way
of walking in the woods.
Katelin Kelly is a poet and educator originally from Lexington, KY. She holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin where she served as managing editor of Bat City Review. Her poetry and prose can be found in Electric Lit, Narrative, Porter House Review, and elsewhere. Katelin teaches creative writing and English in central Texas. She is currently working on a book about the life, poetry, and arcana of Elise Cowen.