Invitation

I have picked mushrooms in the woods

And hunted truffles like a pig, 

Marinated all of it

In a barbecue sauce

To make a hearty, aromatic stew,

For you to come home to.

I got the recipe from a Roman Jewish maid

Who stayed in France after the war.

She told me it was the one

That Esau gave up his inheritance for.

And in that vein, my hope’s

Construed, that you’ll give up

Your work for the day,

To come, break bread, and sup with me,

And lose yourself, for the small eternity 

Known universally as “tonight.”

-jenn

This one was praised to be the dancer

That danced the dance

That was choreographed 

By the producer of the grande ballet.

And that one danced the night away,

In Paris, at the discotheque.

His mind was a wreck

From gin and tonics,

And just as his head quit the ache,

And he searched for something 

Else to take for his malady,

The muse appeared in the mirror 

Of his medicine cabinet.

She smiled and winked,

And perched upon his sink in there,

And wrapped her legs around his waist

And gave him a taste of her lipstick,

And kissed him deep,

And he heard music playing.

He hurried to scrawl the notes and rhythms 

Of just the way he heard the percussion

Answer the baritones,

And the sleepy, sensuous way

Their argument awoke the flute.

And this is the song that will make the people move!

The dancers will dance on the stage,

And the audience will squirm

Uncomfortably in their seats at the matinee,

Wanting to beat the traffic

And get home, to make love

In the heat of the muse, 

The heat of the afternoon.

-jenn

If I have a slightly nasal tone,

You don’t know which part of France I come from,

Or how hard it is to escape the nose

In my family.

I am only one of many children

Lost in gingham checks and calico. 

As one of the youngest,

I’m forgot,

And so they let me grow wild,

As natural as my unkempt hair.

The hand-me-downs I wear spoil me.

The cloth so soft from years of rough washings

That my older siblings bore.

I see their starched postures 

In the paintings done of them,

While I have never had a bath,

Or had to sit still

While an artist drew me.

I’m so far down the line

Of primogeniture,

And yet a child of love,

As royal as any other.

I may not ever rule or reign,

Nor will I stain some foreign land 

With blood of friend or foe,

Nor will I have to.

But what will become of me?

No portrait in the hall of me,

For all the world to see, 

That I too, was a royal?

But the river draws me,

And I can sit for hours

To watch him work,

While I shirk my name

And all the fame

And responsibilities.

Only the nose, someday,

May tell, or maybe 

It will only smell the roses,

The old, wild roses sprawling by the river.

-jenn

I can get so lost in the colors of the bricks here.

I lie on my belly on a beach towel, as I sun,

And with my eyes only six inches from the bricks,

Notice the various colors 

Embedded in each one,

And then, the combination of 

The way that they are laid

Together, in emblematic patterns

Of light and dark and shade, and then,

The mortar seems to be the exact color

That an artist would have chosen,

And I sense, indeed, some starving artisan

Was here, once.

-jenn

When I whistle wistfully,

And the mournful melody 

Takes me by the hand,

I’m not sure at first

If it wants to walk with me,

Or dance with me, right there,

In the river sand under the stars.

Something overtakes me.

Is it sleep?

Or has the music drugged me?

A hypnotic state enthralled me, 

And now, I’m gone.

And now, I’m in Paris, riding in a car.

Speeding through gives me 

The impressionistic feel I’ve seen in paintings.

The rumbling purr of the tires on a brick street,

And thud! We’ve hit something,

Or somebody.

We slow the car to try to find

A place to turn around.

I look out my window

And see a gray bridge and a river

Rushing under it.

My tears must feel a kinship to

The sterling goddess of the waters,

For now my eyes send forth an offering.

And as I cry,

I search,

But all I see

Are rows and endless rows 

Of tall apartments,

And while none of them seem like home to me,

I hear a disconsolate melody

Coming from one window.

It triggers a pensive memory

Of some home I’ve forgotten,

And then, I’m lost again.

-jenn

Gone Girl

She was very exotic then.

She grew up with hippie parents

Who had lived in Japan,

And she brought weird and wonderful things to school

That we Texas kids had never seen.

Once she brought a small jar of cinnamon oil

Stuffed with toothpicks that had soaked awhile.

She gave me one, and though it burned my tender lips, 

My taste for cinnamon eclipsed everything else,

From that moment on.

And once, she brought some dried seaweed,

And several of us got a tiny piece of it

In a strange communion ceremony,

And we considered ourselves so lucky

To be her friends.

I spent the night with her one time when I was nine,

And she showed me her ouija board,

And Sunday morning when we got up,

We put dresses on. (She loaned me one!)

And I felt so fine in it, and we attended

A wild country church in an old rock house

Where some of the window panes

Had fallen out, and people rolled

On the floor in the aisles, 

While the tambourines shook.

And as the choir sang a repeating chorus,

She caught a lizard that darted over 

The old wooden bench we were sitting on,

And I admired her so,

For I wouldn’t’ve touched that thing with a ten foot pole.

Her hair was long and blond

And her eyes were blue,

And her older sister, Monique, was sixteen,

And already dating one of the coaches at school,

And we all figured she would, too,

For it was the wildest thing a young girl could do in our town, 

But she dropped out in eighth grade,

And we never knew where she went

Or what became of her.

She was so becoming.

I still see her in my mind,

Catching lizards right in time

With the gospel blues and the tambourines 

And eating seaweed, cinnamon on her breath,

Staring up into the sun.

She was becoming.

She was becoming.

She was going,

She was gone.

-jenn

They say pride goes before a fall.

But I say have a little pride.

Fall if you have to,

But before you get up,

Lie there and look at the stars.

See how they shine?

Til they can’t shine no more? 

That takes a certain kind of pride

That is right and natural 

And dignified.

So when you get back up this time,

And you will,

Shine, Baby!

For all the world to see!

You may inspire somebody 

Who cannot see the stars,

To shine, too.

-jenn

Take my hand.

Turn my head.

Lure me away

From this pain in my head.

I’ll come dancing with you.

Distract me like a baby

With a teddy bear,

Or give me some candy

So that I’m unaware 

Of how bad it is.

Show me one stone

That I can reach.

I stand in the brook

And long for the beach,

But it seems so far away.

But one more bead

In the rosary,

One more sentence to read,

One more word of poetry,

And I’ll come dancing

With you.

-jenn

In Greene County, Missouri,

The sky is corn silk blue,

But dark, violet thunderheads build

And move in toward the city.

Someone has prayed,

And if Mohammed can’t go to the mountains,

The mountains will move.

Twelve drops of rain fall

And then the diaspora.

Pear blossoms splattered 

On the clover in the country,

And the sidewalk, in the city.

The storm has come 

And gone.

-jenn

Sentenced to the labyrinth, 

I bumped into a wall.

I felt some carvings etched,

Not in a desperate scrawl,

But methodical Ancient Greek.

I couldn’t see it,

But could feel, with my fingertips,

As Braille, and something just below,

Which I recognized as Linear B.

I maul the Ancient Greek again,

Hurry to know what the adept has said

About how to avoid death by the monster.

But I weep as I fondle the glyphs beneath the Greek,

And pray to remember each cut in this

Emergency Rosetta Stone.

I hope I can escape the Minotaur,

To translate what I’ve come to know

About a forgotten language.

If I must, I will seduce the Bull again,

As the Queen of Minos did.

She had her reasons, 

And I have mine.

But maybe our reasons, 

Strangely, are the same.

-jenn

I’m walking through the cassia trees.

My lips taste like cinnamon.

I wrap myself in olive leaves 

And pray for peace.

Finally, in the orange groves,

I sit 

And watch the sunset.

I peel my clothes off

To sleep until I hear the rooster crow.

And this is what they tending the orchard

With empathy.

-jenn

They say there’s a pandemic 

And that people shouldn’t meet

Or shake hands or hug,

But I like to breathe your air,

Real deep. 

Love-behemoth, I kiss you,

And if I don’t get to breathe your air 

Tonight, I’m

Gonna miss you a little too much.

I like your germs.

I like your teeth.

I like your six feet.

I’m not worried about social distance,

Tonight.

I want you in me,

Real deep,

Where you belong.

Love-behemoth, I kiss you,

And if I don’t get to breathe your air 

Tonight, I’m

Gonna miss you a little too much.

-jenn

I hear you calling me

From another world 

Like a phone

Ringing in my dream

I can’t answer you right now

I’m asleep

But please

Tell me what it is 

You want to say

I desperately want to know

Wake me from the slumber

Of my heart’s dark night

So I can see 

Thin disks of jade

Clatter in the breeze

To keep the crows away

But I have hung long silver tubes

To catch the wind

And make the fluted tunes of love 

To draw you here to me

Hopefully I stay awake

Til then

But please

Tell me what it is 

You want to say

I desperately want to know

Wake me from the slumber

Of my heart’s dark night

So I can see 

-jenn

It’s a lovely world we have on our hands.

Wash them! Wash them!

I look in the mirror

To see if I’m still here,

But I can’t find myself amongst

All the strangers

Standing here,

Washing the world off our hands.

-jenn

The poet writes

Of a cricket, 

Floating down the creek

On a leaf, 

Singing.

And I am the cricket.

And the Poet is my song.

And when I’m gone,

The Poet will have to

Sing himself.

-jenn

I’m out gardening with my pail,

And beads of sweat stain my hat.

My chambray shirt is also soaked,

And I want a glass of tea.

And now I see the topless snails

With hands on hips, asking me

Why I didn’t make it to the party.

All the parties were canceled,” I said,

“Because of the coronavirus.”

But the snail girls, naked from 

The waist up, just shook their heads

And said their party wasn’t canceled,

And I could’ve come and joined them

If I’d wanted to.

Well, maybe I will.

-jenn

I have a heart for the worms in my yard. They are so sweet.

They keep the air porosity levels right

So the flowers and beans may grow.

When it rains a lot, they seem

To drown in dirt, and find themselves 

Creeping aimlessly through the street.

I have the urge to pick them up

And put them somewhere safe.

I don’t know where.

I tend to throw them back into my yard,

But they just came from there,

And they don’t seem happy to be back.

I don’t seem happy to have to touch them.

It makes me squeal to feel them squirm.

Worm salvation is a dirty business,

But it can be more satisfying than

Evangelicizing for a church.

Maybe some of the very enlightened worms,

When they discover they are saved,

Sing hallelujah and glory be.

I have a heart for the worms in my yard,

But do they have ten hearts for me?

-jenn

A starry dew falls on the Milky Way.

It’s night here, but the day is breaking there.

Some rare and precious thing they call a sun

Rises up through sighs and stares,

Illuminates the dusty pearls of matter

That coalesce in swirling masses of stuff

That may become a planet.

And like a violent storm,

The Milky Skirt twirls along the cosmos. 

Both centrifuge and centripetal,

It brings in energy and desires

And casts them out as dreams

Upon the beams of things 

That we call light.

And you may see an image there

Of your destiny,

And you may reach your fingers

Up into the night

And bring them back and taste them in your mouth,

Like candy spun with magic and poetry,

And delight yourself in the great power

Of being alive, tonight, in the universe.

-jenn

Quarrel

Meeting you was a knot in my shoelace

That I couldn’t untie.

I tried, but nothing could untangle

Me from you.

And so I wore you

Like a shoe too tight,

And too loose,

And everything but right,

Until everything was frazzled.

Now I’ll take the scissors and cut the lace,

And replace the strings for both shoes,

So one won’t look different 

To other people.

But I will know what this poor heart

Has been through,

And I will be very easy on myself 

And my left shoe.

-jenn

So strange to see 

A Tulip Tree

In full bloom today.

A sky so gray,

It lowers its lashes

While it rains.

It blooms in pale shades

Of pink to deep blush burgundy

And introduces itself quietly

By its other name,

Jane Magnolia.

And I take a cue,

And wear my faded blue sweats

To the store

With a frilly taupe sweater

And lower my lashes a little more

When I see you.

And if you ask me to,

I’ll introduce myself

As Jane Magnolia.

-jenn

It’s strange looking out my eyes today.

The sky blue mixed with white and gray 

And, now, elucidates everything 

With a brighter hue.

It tints the world with new problems and possibilities.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t curl my hair,

Or because I didn’t wear eyeshadow 

Or mascara today.

I feel like I am looking everywhere,

And no one’s looking back at me.

I can see so clearly without the eyes

Of others staring.

I can see so clearly, now.

And this may be my last bath,

A formal baptism and repentance.

I take my towels down from the rack.

I hang my clothes on a peg in the wall

And rinse the tub one last time.

I’m watching my life 

Go down the drain,

And I fear I won’t be back.

What if I won’t be back again?

-jenn

Nights with you

Are so divine,

Riding high,

Top down and the Beatles on.

Nights with you

Are so divine.

Joy’s coming real soon.

The stars do shine.

There’s a ring around the moon.

A certain feel,

Joy’s coming soon.

Joy’s coming real soon.

Nights with you

Are so divine,

Riding high,

Top down and the Beatles on.

Nights with you

Are so divine.

Joy’s coming real soon.

A picture show

In mid-July.

The hay is mown.

We can smell it at the drive-in.

Joy’s coming soon.

Joy’s coming real soon.

-jenn