Poetry by Jess L Parker
Poetry & Prose Contest Winner
Sparkly Enough
Holding me down in the deep like
an ocean over stone is a raspy voice,
because I’m thirteen and wearing too much
makeup (or none at all) and it’s homecoming.
Because I was born with crooked teeth and
a vagina in a trailer park with no last name.
And no neighborhood watch. And no bake
sale on Sundays. Holding me down by
the neck at half time is a boy (who is a
thousand boys) who surely deserves
something that he has not been eagerly
offered with a smile. But holding me down
most forcefully, is another girl who watches
the stars fade from my eyes, saying nothing while
she saves herself from being shown that she, too,
is not sparkly enough.
Plenty More Fish
They say there are plenty more fish
in the sea—but what about when we
are drought… what once were waves,
come crashing, now form arid dunes—
a flimsy patch of dust in the afternoon.
We often refreshed ourselves against the onion
sun with a half-hearted splash, a lap, fin-feathered
kick—our salt-tongues puckering, on the edge
of ocean, paused, were our lips… now there is
nothing of this.
What once was slippery and gleaming,
sparkle-finned and lean like a sequined bicep,
now is ash over bone. A micro, once-was vertebrae
etched in hot, parched stone…
Those plenty more fish never anticipated this:
our pre-apocalypse childhood sandbox
overgrown, dry, and alone.
Run Out of the Sun
Pockets of cold air burst
like a fat, wet blueberry.
I do and I don’t want to let go,
coast downhill at full speed,
handlebars missing my palms
as they wobble on stray rocks.
I do and I don’t remember gravel
in my knees at eight years old,
sparklers whirring, one of many
ambulances on 4th of July…
Among onlookers, a nearly
anonymous, dirty-blonde head
whose beady eyes belong to a boy
with a name I can’t recall. Or won’t.
And a long, sharp stick nearby
that no one noticed… and candy—
littering the streets like pebbles,
feels the same under a child’s bike
tires, under a wiry body thrown
over empty street. For now, I exhale,
knowing what is coming. If I could see
the air ahead, it would be purple and
unbroken in the shade, like a storm
forthcoming. I let my tires run
until they run out of sun.