March 2022
Bio Note: I am so delighted that my collection The Waiting Room for the Imperfect Alibis is forthcoming from Kelsay Books and I have seven chapbooks, two Pushcart Prize nominations and quite a few chickens. I also make noise in the viola sections of the Madison Symphony and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
Red Onion Politic
The way it can
gracefully add
its biting opinions to
the lettuce,
reveal policy in
a slaw
And its suggestion of a
rambler rose strategy
across a plate of
sliced citrus,
singing loudly,
but always in tune
Tiger’s Milk
There were no tigers in the outback, but we grew up and up on their milk, mum’s recipe, with brewer’s yeast and molasses in cow’s milk The stream of blackstrap would swirl like a circus ride, the clumpy yeast breaking up with the stir, dissolving into a beach at sunset And we’d sip our destinies, smacking our lips, and due to genes and tigers, we grew up to be as tall as this poem
Christobel Mattingley wrote her best-selling children’s book ’Tiger’s Milk’ decades ago and dedicated it to her best friend, my mother: ‘To Margot, who gave me the recipe’
©2022 Katrin Talbot
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