Self-Portrait (The Mother Mill) by Kirstin Allio

I’m always [            ]ing as if I were compromised.

As if I were about to be called to hand like a tool. 

The heartbeat of my hands is the repetitive task.

Empathy originates in the body, according to the first scholar of empathy, the philosopher Edith Stein. Then she left phenomenology for spirit. I want community, not conformity, for no matter if I do things fast or slow, my death is grist for gravity and if all this sounds like no way out of a tight sentence, use your indoor thoughts to summon your inner mother of unprovoked forgiveness. 

Kirstin Allio received the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize from FC2 for her 2024 story collection, Double-Check for Sleeping Children. Previous books are the novels Garner (Coffee House Press), Buddhism for Western Children (University of Iowa), and the story collection Clothed, Female Figure (Dzanc). She lives in Providence, RI.

7 August 2026