I eat in the car occasionally.

I know it must seem so selfish of me,

But I'm so tired of the beggars

Begging me for a crust of my bread.

I'm hungry too.

I want a little chunk of time

Framed by peace,

A miniature nativity scene

Where I can go sit in silence

And eat my slice of pizza

Alone and think,

And know the answers

To even the questions I'm looking for.

-jenn

In my room at night

I hear the wind.

It blows just right at intervals

Over bamboo I've cut

And stuck into the mud.

It makes a tone as somber as

The hollowed out bamboo,

A simple monotone.

I have seen the light with you.

It refracts from somewhere in your soul.

It bends and blows around the backyard

Of my bamboo hut,

Calling me out to play.

I will come and listen to you sing.

I will sit with my chin on my knees

Until I catch the rhythm of your heart,

And then I will dance with it.

-jenn

I find evidence in the morning 

Of things I heard 'go bump' in the night,

A Q-tip floating in the dog's water bowl,

A broken coffee cup,

And I know the culprit right away,

Out of all my menagerie,

A little gray cat with impossible green eyes

Is responsible.

They told me she was "fixed"

When I adopted her,

But I'm glad they didn't know

That they left all the most troublesome parts

Alive and well inside her.

For I wanted a cat,

And that, she is, through and through.

She slinks through my life

And this house, at night,

Doing things that naughty cats do,

Or, even a nice one, probably would,

For cats aren't naughty or nice or bad or good.

Cats are cats, and if we could know,

Humans are humans, and we could allow

Ourselves and others to be more so,

If we would quit judging one another so harshly

And just take the Q-tip out of the dog bowl

Quietly, and go on with our days.

-jenn

You give me ideas.

They form into color pictures.

They cascade down the mountains in my mind

And rumble through the valleys

Toward my heart, 

Like hunger pains,

And I can hear the echoes of peristalsis:

My body trying to digest something 

That isn't there.

-jenn

I try not to need anything.

It's never done me any good.

I can need in one hand and shit in the other,

And see which one fills up faster.

But give me just a little room to spin,

A little more to let my skirt hoop out,

And two gimbals,

And my joy fountain will spill up

And provide three degrees 

Of rotational freedom splashing everywhere.

And I can remain completely self-contained forever,

And I can make sure everyone is happy for a little while.

-jenn

His face was rapids over rocks,

White caps ever moving fluid,

Shallow breathing,

Shadows falling in the craters of the moon.

And you could know the motion of 

The planets in his turning,

And you could know the lunar day 

By the the way he switched

And changed his mind.

And he could look 16 or 51,

75 or 8,

And I thought he was great,

As long as his bright side shone

Towards me.

As long as I could leave his dark side

Well enough alone,

He was, and

We were

A force to be reckoned with.

-jenn

Too Young, Two Judgmental 

In a flash of his eyes I saw

His judgement of me.

I would become too fat for him.

Any children I bore who wore 

My resemblance in their DNA

Would be too short to quarterback

In the NFL, and while they might

Be bright enough to attend medical school, 

As he was,

They'd never have the chiseled chin,

But maybe just a double one

Like I would someday,

And so he never asked me for a date,

That neighbor I had in college,

And it was s good thing,

Because while he might have had foresight,

I had the knowledge of 'now,'

And knew that leopards never change their spots,

And most people who are assholes when they're young,

Only become more ass-holish

Through and through as they age.

So I never asked him out either.

-jenn