Abigail Chabitnoy


Disquiet Ark


            most funerals get it wrong.

harvest. bloom. root. to rope.

I’d rather bore myself in[to] a brilliant shell
without need of bearing violently forth
but when was the last time you found one
unprized without a price?

the harvest is in my power
       (so, it is said)
but not the blossom
and / if roots are to keep me grounded
it’s no wonder I’m unmoored.

banks break. what might
flowers signify.

if you came from the state I’m in
you’d prefer the rock
of waves as I do.

poppy petals in the current.
ordinary violets. toss in a daffodil. restless
in the channel. besides.

the shoreline harbors toxins
hoards oxygen. this
we call blooming. boom and
beam, (beautifully)

it’s too much to ask my ark not to break.
not to break [me] on these steppes / I open—
        but tie these ribs at the spine
and give them berth.

            what might 
they herald. 

most funerals get it wrong, (to hide 
the bloat) the blossoming / breath. the vessel
overcome
                [cup runneth over]
in the right seas it is right 
       to scuttle ::
a kindness.

Restless in the Channel


I am thinking of the black pebbles
       slipping from the beach
the white porcelain or bone
       i cupped in my hands 
before returning / to
       the green blue waves

my small dog’s ears
       folding between my fingers
their downy warmth and i / 
       who have never been known 
to cocoon can too relish the confines
       of a nest

pink feet after rain 
       the smell of popcorn 
between toes, unlikely i know
       but warm. the stone i kept
the sharp beach glass i left
       behind, the sandwich bag

of fine black sand 
       folded in with the luggage.
I think of the tongued rock reeling
       from the beach, routing
green waves / the color
       of the dead man’s face

otherwise a shark
       masquerading on city walls
those walls thieving those walls 
       the wood, no longer drifting
not splintering
       the smooth side (of) the whole

spine smuggled home in my
       familiar filth cleansed of 
its own rot and stink 
       and I think in all this
robbed and roped and rotted
       reaching 

not even walls can resist
       the pale hand withdrawn and
clenching, naturally
       there were spiders on the beach
rats on the island
       i know how to move / arms

but a dog keeps company
       erects a throne at my feet
hook line sink the dead and living
       i too can hold worlds
comb the bones from my black halo
       course restless channels

Hung/er Mother

imagine my belly
in my belly
a boat

imagine my water
all hands on deck a
wash
my water eager
to lick
the hull
            clean

imagine i am / m/other
monster
old testament god-

        like
i so love the world 
           so
that i devour

i am no less 
this world
the ark i conceive so
no more than that
i hope

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful (Wesleyan 2022); How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), shortlisted for the 2020 International Griffin Prize for Poetry and winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award; and the linocut illustrated chapbook Converging Lines of Light (Flower Press 2021). She currently teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts low-residency MFA program and is an assistant professor at UMass Amherst. Abigail is a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak. Find her at salmonfisherpoet.com.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022