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K. T. BILLEY 


The Rusty Toque | Issue 13 | Poetry | November 30, 2017

​MISSIVE FROM A FORMER MASTODON 
​

Prepare yourself ​
and eye shadow.   ​

In the future  ​
and their legs ​
across the yard. 

​More than aggression
​and glands, 
​

​The second you see


to decompose:
​witnessing

A species
​A spiral
for what you’ll miss


people 
​look like ours, 


​in the goose pen, 
this is a watershed.


yourself
​anything

a sibling
a softening.

of limestone clock
​laughing at its own
most: amaranth


​love each other
hollering


​hair
​A Flood.

as bigger than
​else, you begin




or layer of gravel.
​bad aim.
​

GLOSSARY


I. Clutches
 
Enable transmission
from one component
to another, whenever
 
power or motion must
be controlled in amount,
or over time.
 

II. Struts
 
The reduction
of unsprung
 
weight improves
handling, and ride.
 
​
III. & Brakes
 
It is normal
for them to be
mounted rigidly
 
with respect
to the body
of the vehicle.

​​CLUTCHES 


​a spool of barb wire
​my calf

​
​the longest scar






​


clots are provisions
​a set of lips

​
my blood let


a time signature

STRUTS


​defining a fence
​on the way down

​
on the body of a woman
​attractive means

stretch marks, more-than
collagen

​glue
​



I pack

​
​alone


an autograph
in irons,
saying this

is how I hit
the spot

& BRAKES (II)


​caught
​and now

​
you don't consider


over-expressed
birthing

​collage as consent

​


for the long haul
of hankering

​on the dotted line


of highway



the road
the hay
​the jackpot

CLUTCHES STRUTS & BRAKES (III)

                
I finally coughed up the triptych
in the back of my throat.
 
The wrench, the storm,
the centaur waist.
 
The suspense with which
I hold my own.

​K. T. BILLEY grew up in Red Deer, Alberta, moved to New York City to study poetry, then came gratefully back to Canada. Her debut collection Vulgar Mechanics will be published by Coach House Books in 2019. Her Icelandic-English translation of 
Stormwarning by Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir won the 2017 Leif Inger Sjöberg Prize—a bilingual edition is forthcoming from Phoneme Media. Her Spanish-English translation of Chintungo by Chilean poet Soledad Marambio is now available from Ugly Ducking Presse. A Vallum Poetry Prize winner and former Teaching Fellow in Poetry at Columbia University, she is not a Fellow At All.
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  • Home
    • Issue 1 >
      • Creative Nonfiction: 1
      • Fiction: 1
      • Screenwriting: 1
      • Poetry: 1
      • Contributors: 1
    • Issue 2 >
      • Visual Art: 2
      • Fiction: 2
      • Poetry: 2
      • Masthead: 2
      • Contributors: 2
    • Issue 3 >
      • Poetry: 3
      • Visual Art: 3
      • Comics: 3
      • Fiction: 3
      • Reviews: 3
      • Masthead: 3
      • Contributors: 3
    • Issue 4 >
      • Prose: 4
      • Poetry: 4
      • Reviews: 4
      • Visual Art: 4
      • Contributors: 4
      • Masthead: 4
    • Issue 5 >
      • Nonfiction Kathy Acker & McKenzie Wark
      • Drama: 5
      • Prose: 5
      • Poetry: 5
      • Film: 5
      • Comics: 5
      • Reviews: 5
      • Visual Art: 5
      • Video & Sound: 5
      • Masthead: 5
      • Contributors: 5
    • Issue 6 >
      • Poetry: 6
      • Prose: 6
      • Reviews: 6
      • Film: 6
      • Visual Art: 6
      • Masthead: 6
      • Contributors: 6
    • Issue 7 >
      • Film: 7
      • Prose: 7
      • Poetry: 7
      • Reviews: 7
      • Visual Art: 7
      • Comics: 7
      • Masthead: 7
      • Contributors: 7
    • Issue 8 >
      • Poetry: 8
      • Prose: 8
      • Visual Art: 8
      • Comics: 8
      • Reviews: 8
      • Contributors: 8
      • Masthead: 8
    • Issue 9 >
      • Poetry: 9
      • Prose: 9
      • Comics: 9
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      • Contributors: 9
      • Masthead: 9
    • Issue 10 >
      • Poetry: 10
      • Fiction: 10
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      • Visual Art: 10
      • Film: 10
      • Comics: 10
      • Contributors: 10
      • Masthead: 10
    • Issue 11 >
      • Poetry: 11
      • Prose: 11
      • Reviews: 11
      • Visual Art: 11
      • Comics: 11
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    • Issue 12 >
      • Poetry: 12
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    • Issue 13 >
      • Poetry: 13
      • Fiction: 13
      • Nonfiction: 13
      • Visual Art: 13
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      • Reviews: 13
      • Contributors: 13
      • Masthead: 13
  • About
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    • Chapbooks
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