I'm curious as to why you say Genesis is poetic allegory. The reason I ask is because when I think of poetry in the Bible, I think of the Psalms, which has a specific Hebrew poetic sentence structure. (I could get into the details, but that would probably bore too many folks.) For what it's worth, from first to last, the Psalms are mostly praises and prayers.
And the sentence structure of Psalms is nothing like the sentence structure of Genesis. Therefore, and I could be wrong here, Genesis is not considered Hebrew poetry or allegory according to my own studies of the Hebrew sentence structure.
Are Roman Catholic's taught that Genesis is poetic allegory? If so, do you know what they use as source criterion? If not, is this something you've come to believe on your own? Just trying to get inside your head...