Catherine Kyle is the author of the poetry collection Parallel (Another New Calligraphy, 2017), the poetry chapbooks Gamer: A Role-Playing Poem (dancing girl press, 2015) and Flotsam (Etched Press, 2015), and the hybrid-genre collection Feral Domesticity (Robocup Press, 2014). Her writing has been honored by the Idaho Commission on the Arts, the Alexa Rose Foundation, and other organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Western Michigan University and is pursuing an MFA in Poetry through New England College's low-residency program. She teaches literature and creative writing at the College of Western Idaho and through The Cabin, a literary nonprofit. Catherine’s website is www.catherinebaileykyle.com.
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Illuminating (Saint’s First Miracle)
Saint hoists herself from the
tenuous lake. Moonlight
dries her skin. She dresses
and gazes into a ground
-level storefront with colorful
signs. They advertise brashly
the products beside them: flat
-screen, twelve-inch, handheld.
She steps through the frame
with its remnants of glass,
slips between displays. The shop
is as dark as a dilated pupil.
She puts her earbud in.
Scrolls to find the right song.
Delves deeper into the digital
womb, dodging the corpses
of fluorescent tubes. Saint takes
the stairs. Up to the next floor,
where larger electronics wait. Neat
grid of monitors silent as marble,
rows of gray faces like angel
tombstones. Breeze fingers
through the windowless portal,
spectacle without a lens. Saint
stands at the linoleum edge.
Opens her hands, palms up
like a conductor. Raises them and
shuts her eyes. Thousands of light
-bulbs burst to life. The city
shines bright as struck match.
Humming, a metal beast shaking
its coat, incandescent fur bristled.