Stefanie Kirby

Aftermath

Apology is a shell. The mouth, a wheel. Every softness turns
against itself eventually.

I want to carve something from a hollow tongue.

                        In a dream, I slice my own cheek
                        into excuses with knife and fork.

                        Or: I say more than I should.

What mouth hasn’t unraveled? What mouth isn’t still
an opening?

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Stefanie Kirby is the author of Fruitful (Driftwood Press, 2024), winner of the Adrift Chapbook Contest; Remainder (Bull City Press, 2025) and Opening (Glass Poetry Press, 2026). Her poetry appears in Best of the Net, West Branch, Pleiades, Sixth Finch, Sugar House Review and elsewhere. She lives along Colorado’s Front Range with her family.