perhappened mag
issue 7: SNOWFALL
i only listen to bon iver
when it’s snowing &
it is always snowing
KENLEY ALLIGOOD
in Michigan and I am sick
for loves who leave
and move downstate or only
across town. & Superior’s
shores melt late into the year
and I’ve left loves there too —
disguised as smooth stones,
my chest as pack ice
which will crack open
unexpectedly to swallow you
whole. Forty-eight people
drowned last year in Lake Michigan
and I dream of glaciers a mile thick
rumbling slow overhead, the weight
of the holocene pressing the life
out of all of us and on into another
winter. & I am sorry
for washing up here, all tangled
rigging and exposed
ribs, the blood-rust flaking
off my lips, staining all
your clothes. I didn’t mean it.
& we haven’t met yet, but darling
the forecast is calling for another
blizzard. Downstate, the salt trucks
patrol the highways. & I wrote this
forever ago.
for loves who leave
and move downstate or only
across town. & Superior’s
shores melt late into the year
and I’ve left loves there too —
disguised as smooth stones,
my chest as pack ice
which will crack open
unexpectedly to swallow you
whole. Forty-eight people
drowned last year in Lake Michigan
and I dream of glaciers a mile thick
rumbling slow overhead, the weight
of the holocene pressing the life
out of all of us and on into another
winter. & I am sorry
for washing up here, all tangled
rigging and exposed
ribs, the blood-rust flaking
off my lips, staining all
your clothes. I didn’t mean it.
& we haven’t met yet, but darling
the forecast is calling for another
blizzard. Downstate, the salt trucks
patrol the highways. & I wrote this
forever ago.
Kenley Alligood is a poet and writer living in Marquette. Originally from Georgia, she now spends most of her time, coffee in hand, watching the snow fall. She is an associate poetry and shorts editor for Passages North and her work has appeared most recently in Feral. Twitter: @alligood_k; Instagram: @bottlerocketreadingseries.