axial gallery
parenthetical were horses
a welcome and a well-wishing
and i frequent their frames:
thickened gut dragging the floor
narrow towers, bearded
or sulking with wool
i reach up to shape them
shuddered with flame
and stretch my neck their necks
their muzzle-mouths
which bite and clasp
from yellow-blueing
and a kicked-back muscling
which they weave through
but i draw them living
wind through the nostril
un-extinct
early magdalenian
in this day and age it can only be slight
reductions of harm picture: a skin bag
gauged out bone-frame it’s mid-july i don’t know it
by name plucking the prairie of rabbit
something chevron to the act the conifer
Mackenzie Kozak is the author of no swaddle (University of Iowa Press, 2025), selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Boston Review, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. Mackenzie serves as an associate editor at Orison Books and works as a grief therapist in Asheville, North Carolina.