Author Archives: Jenny

  Now day turns ever November as the schoolyard iron and plastic of slides, rings, ladders, and bars stab into the backfat of a grey sky and the children dropping in play upon the mulch are but mulch themselves to … Read More

  There were enough leaves around my feet to bury a child.   A second moon had been predicted,   but looking up through branches, I saw only bones   pricking through the floor of a nest—   their existence … Read More

  drifted to the broken sidewalk— you know the place: past First Ward school (where AA meets now) but before the crest of the hill, before the road narrows so only one car can pass at a time. It was … Read More

  People say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I don’t know if I believe that. Your hands moving over the blankets were the last indicator of want. Want is where the soul rests. It could be … Read More

  I go through her buttons: that population of immigrants, some humble, prepossessing, some big, shiny hemispheres like the golden dome of a Shiite mosque. Some are eagle-embossed, tarnished from combat. One is tortoise shell to which a pittance of … Read More

  I can’t tell you how happy I am to announce how happy I am. No, really. I can’t tell you— I have no mouth, only the skin of my chin curving up into the twin caverns of a mundane … Read More

  Remember this one? Narcissus vs. Pond in a staring contest? Wind riffles water, Narcissus declared winner. Enraged pond pulls out hidden revolver. I don’t remember it ending like that either. But when the lake I happened to be dating … Read More

  Where one should hear the echo of a duck’s call there is only glazed stillness, the word lake so close to lacquer, lack. Stood at the scum-rimmed edge I said nothing, a friend said listen, but I only heard … Read More

  XI. In Navajo creation stories, the Coyote convinces the water monster     to inhale him. Our neighbor is surprised to learn that Eric, reared Jewish, identifies as Buddhist, is surprised to learn that I’m not Jewish. By July, … Read More

  Unless while it’s growing you feed it strips of pork fat crushed with orange   rinds & ginger. Unless you turn the soil with your bare hands & blacken your nails   with its roots. Unless you cook it … Read More

  The Golden Age Then the animals could talk in words. The sparrow to the farmer sang and the farmer sang along, the pine and the laurel counseled the honey in its tomb to sing a tune, and the bees … Read More

  The old oak in the creek’s bend stands blotted black with songbirds— stripped branches’ lateral buds breaking early-sunset sky— we sounded like them, you and I, when you screeched in the numb night and you ate from my body. … Read More