A Tonalist Poetry Feature

Alli Warren

Three poems

Sausages, Hogsheads, Legs of Mutton, Lard, Tripes / A Nice Quiet Moment for Mom (remix) / Some Greater Social Sharing

Sausages, Hogsheads, Legs of Mutton, Lard, Tripes

and tubs of wine
in the duct again
additive and beautifully redundant

interspecific pit
of a possible world

I work hard to know
if there is any gold
My job is to mop ejaculate

I employ the swim-a-phone
in high impact accessories
and make a face beneath the noise

all tingly from the consommé
I roll back the jersey and claim
the clams I work at
collecting are lush pastels

and when you talk
I just watch your mouth

This is the day
I have to write about now
These are the ham hocks
and their unanimous consent
you’ve been waiting for

Tell your mom I said hi



A Nice Quiet Moment for Mom (remix)

The girls help ice this cake and we make
quite a mess. The big tanks above the two
working men completely disintegrate
into masses of fluff. This is the operating
room before I try to restore milky need.
These look like the people that will be dead.
I don’t believe in necessity
I love that sagging overhang, the other cars,
the chair has wheels on it to move the patient
about. This is my mother
the heaviest bloom tied up along the shore.
You can see her badge and me
in my feather plumes doing something
with the horse in Aisle 1 Bin 13.



Some Greater Social Sharing

with two eyes fixed
on one profile

doing the pre
emptive poke

fetching and carrying
the cake as functionaries

in the hay
in which we are

seized only later
on in perpetuity

we do this daily
we sink our teats

in the sauce
there’s very little

one can say exactly
except to point

in parting what
one does is blink

Alli Warren works in psychoacoustics on the Left Coast. Recent chapbooks include Well-Meaning White Girl, No Can Do, and Bruised Dick (a collaboration with Michael Nicoloff). She lives in Oakland and co-curates The New Reading Series at 21 Grand.