Looking for Coins

I pull a small village out of my pocket

lay it on the grass

re-arrange the houses

& mailboxes.

I pull a galaxy from my ribcage

lay it across my thigh

admire the stars.

When I swallow a distant planet my belly lights up,

& I feel the power of a wolf, her ears,

her teeth. When I start howling,

I conclude I’ve felt something.

I don’t want to know what I know,

the pain too much, the way

sadness pools at the lungs

& blood remembers blood.  

The wolves howling behind the chamisa want something. Their jaws can snap

a human arm to dust.

Your soul has never been harmed, she said. Walk into the forest.

I’ll follow wild horses, make beauty of running away,

hooves to ground

mane in the wind 

mountains shifting with moss glimmer.

I’ll grow a new jaw, learn a new language.

I pull a knife out of my throat

lay it across my threshold.

I pull a new world out of my heart

the globe of her, spinning—

everywhere I look are roses—

purple, red

& pink

that smell of midnight, only finer.

Alicia Elkort's second book of poetry won the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Book Prize and will be published in 2026. Her first book "A Map of Every Undoing" was published in 2022 by Stillhouse Press with George Mason University, after winning their book contest and her chapbook "Disturb the Bones" was published December 2025. Alicia's poetry has been nominated several times for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and the Orison Anthology, and her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. She reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal where she also writes reviews. For more info or to watch her two video poems: https://aliciaelkort.mystrikingly.com/