Jessie Janeshek
Grateful for Dissonance/This Month of Strong Thinking
Snake Rhyme/Snake Magic
    I graduate violence                              your blood wolf at breakfast
sausaged, heavy-metaled                             in my Cure sweatshirt.
                                             as you ring the bedstead
                              watching soap operas                prom pictures reflected
                                                            on the face of the wall Swatch
                                             as you eat the space cakes
                                             side ponytail crimped
                                                                           your strawberry lip gloss oleaginous
                                                                           in its red carrying case.
               Our mother’s pink-robed
                              her hair frayed like a hound in a bad country ballad
                              and I no longer believe in your deep cuts
                              your Magic Moves Barbie                your hot pink play bus.
                                                            The dead school girl interpolates
                                                                     marry        fuck          kill
                                             wills us her innocent
                                             Love’s Babysoft scents
                                                                           but our neighbor boy moons us
                                                                           calls you nightgown whore
                                                                           ignoring your backbrace.
Remember How Sex
sparked in the fry pan
my husband passed on?
We cauterized
the cobbler’s baba
and his bullet wound?
We shot ourselves
some marginal rabbit?
We bottled the toddler
shut the two-headed kitten
in a cigarette case?
I knew I could trust
our three lumps, your smoke
and my buckshot. Then you
ate my faith with a spoon.
There Is an Old Woman
refusing                              jade-fingered
               to break for small deaths
as we hang naked               from rings in the basement
over the toolbench the puppet collection
               the orange beanbag            Dad’s catfood
                              the vein diagram.
Menstruation’s convivial madness
little red riding.               It gives us surrealism
a blue-themed moon pounding
a bridge, locust-crisp
a Saint Catherine’s wheel
to fill in when we don’t need a nanny.               She steers too shaky
her blood-streaked hair gamey.
She screams graveyard!
and in our bedroom                  the Cabbage Patch Kids
reach out to touch                     their lavender flares.
We spray-paint them itchy
               stick-pin-pierce their ears.
We shoplift tears and a glittery haircut
rocks in our eyes. And the lawnmower blade
               decapitates               the kitsch jewelry maker
               and we’re so scared of pipesmoke and potions
               that the Cure sweatshirt
               will make a parachute
as we jump iridescent
from the cardboard age.
It Gets to Where I Eat
Snake Rhyme
Jessie Janeshek's chapbooks are Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, 2016), and Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming, 2017). Her full-length collection of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College (West Virginia, USA), she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.
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Grateful for Dissonance/This Month of Strong Thinking
I’m in love with your new hair
and lopsided breasts
the need to be spanked
want to take you at night
in this pocket of plush
swallow bird spikes in long stockings.
I squeeze my thighs shut
tremble above the punches and blood.
The mood of my corpse
does not matter in saccharine
mouthfuls of pills.
The snakes wear the bedclothes as capes
as I hesitate
to burn the wench costume
wean myself off polar sleep.
Snake Rhyme/Snake Magic
    I graduate violence                              your blood wolf at breakfast
sausaged, heavy-metaled                             in my Cure sweatshirt.
                                             as you ring the bedstead
                              watching soap operas                prom pictures reflected
                                                            on the face of the wall Swatch
                                             as you eat the space cakes
                                             side ponytail crimped
                                                                           your strawberry lip gloss oleaginous
                                                                           in its red carrying case.
               Our mother’s pink-robed
                              her hair frayed like a hound in a bad country ballad
                              and I no longer believe in your deep cuts
                              your Magic Moves Barbie                your hot pink play bus.
                                                            The dead school girl interpolates
                                                                     marry        fuck          kill
                                             wills us her innocent
                                             Love’s Babysoft scents
                                                                           but our neighbor boy moons us
                                                                           calls you nightgown whore
                                                                           ignoring your backbrace.
Remember How Sex
sparked in the fry pan
my husband passed on?
We cauterized
the cobbler’s baba
and his bullet wound?
We shot ourselves
some marginal rabbit?
We bottled the toddler
shut the two-headed kitten
in a cigarette case?
I knew I could trust
our three lumps, your smoke
and my buckshot. Then you
ate my faith with a spoon.
There Is an Old Woman
refusing                              jade-fingered
               to break for small deaths
as we hang naked               from rings in the basement
over the toolbench the puppet collection
               the orange beanbag            Dad’s catfood
                              the vein diagram.
Menstruation’s convivial madness
little red riding.               It gives us surrealism
a blue-themed moon pounding
a bridge, locust-crisp
a Saint Catherine’s wheel
to fill in when we don’t need a nanny.               She steers too shaky
her blood-streaked hair gamey.
She screams graveyard!
and in our bedroom                  the Cabbage Patch Kids
reach out to touch                     their lavender flares.
We spray-paint them itchy
               stick-pin-pierce their ears.
We shoplift tears and a glittery haircut
rocks in our eyes. And the lawnmower blade
               decapitates               the kitsch jewelry maker
               and we’re so scared of pipesmoke and potions
               that the Cure sweatshirt
               will make a parachute
as we jump iridescent
from the cardboard age.
It Gets to Where I Eat
nothing and drink whiskey.
Dolly shreds the funny papers
the big girl scrubs brown cups
the puppy in the stockyard
barking bitterness and fat.
It gets to where I ricochet
between a triangle, an eyepatch
and the milkmaid sorts the curses
begs me to unpack.
Dolly will not mop, the barn’s orange anatomy
soft as a Nerf ball.
It gets to if you loved me
you would stage my loneliness
throw me to the rain
let the grass concern and the wasps’ nest shriek.
You would hold my hair back
outside at the gravesite
where birds eat acetaminophen
and there’s no time like this present
red dogs on the fence.
Snake Rhyme
There was an old woman on our fainting couch We called yellow foxes with olive parabolas. came to advise in the gummy autumnal. said No Ouija when you’re sick so drop a rock on her blank grave but we let Dolly’s fossils | before we cried pulpit and she snowglobed Dolly. clinking our leashes There was an old woman rutting, proper sunlight She put mom in the thermometer and Dolly is your gutter culprit and chalk sex on the concrete sing the blues inside her cage. |
Jessie Janeshek's chapbooks are Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, 2016), and Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming, 2017). Her full-length collection of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College (West Virginia, USA), she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.