Three Poems
Jessie Janeshek
Differentiated Superstition
Tricks detonate.
You build a tank say its confusing
when the rapist has pupils shaped like a snake.
I wake up with hope (hearse songs help you heal)
in the boughs of the house.
Autonomy how
no thick eyelashes a blood-stained mattress
red-studded cups.
The second wave of cicadas
devalued the mushrooms the cub locked and loaded.
Sisters dying their blonde black
sat at the autoharp shredded me in
said how he said from under the mask
think about orange lips
your seaside scent burning.
I said I meant midnight
my cat so tight under my plaid skirt I couldnt piss.
I wish I loved time enough
to wake up and confront it and stretch it exquisite
and incriminate. The lion didnt make it
but fill me in on how you claim
you cool the abrasions
in my soft white insides.
~ ~ ~
It Could Be a Hoarse Exaggeration
but not too much of one
torture environment loyalty pleasure
and 14 Texans killing moon dead
a tiger-striped bride.
The black-water menu
the spirograph steps are so sweet and loving I might drop the baby
but well wake up eventually w/ the tin donkey the fox hiding its head.
Youll say want a bloodbath story
and hurry before all treats are gone.
The girls go to the dance
crossing the ballfield in long lacy wounds
tetanus and thick heels and Peter Pan collars
understanding my struggle is part and parcel
since its like being drugged
no desire for sex and there are deaf cats dumb underwires
no health anywhere
since the summer descends
like an alien ship
no food for six days. Your wife runs away
since my patterned stockings weave some magic around you
and I squat to pee
bangs blunt and French on your canopied bed
and I wear my skull necklace
and then you run away without seeing me.
~ ~ ~
Close-up Nocturnal
Right there. Turn your head. You will not cry
with joy or shame
watching the rabbit
die to the side
of the stunt girls hairy back.
The stunt girls name is Key
her gun glowing green.
Her brain is too small
and she does nothing
for your toyshadow the luxury
of your sweet infertility.
Cicadas fly limply at night
theyve lost all sense of time
The murderess was young once
her hips growing bigger dive-bombing sex with every existence.
The sun doesnt penetrate the chartreuse lagoon
the grass widows war wound the low burn of complicity.
You tire of black exoskeletons
want your hair white like Judy Jetsons.
Your long sleep is denial in the nymph stage
a weak heart a bad cough
a Jean Harlow death double.
The sun is an animal.
and what can it mean
when you exit the crime scene untouched?
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