Jenn Monroe

Trois poesies

 

NO DIVING: An anti-love poem

No flirting. No teasing. No longing glances. No
innocent brush against shoulders. No hand-holding—
neither cupped nor fingers entwined. Certainly no
hugging; definitely no kissing. No physical embrace
of any kind. No emotional attachment whatsoever.
Exchanges of words of adoration or desire will not
be tolerated. Absolutely no entanglements—hair,
legs, tongues, reputations or otherwise.

Posted by the Board of Recreation for your safety.
 

 

Luddite

Give me my voyeurism the old fashioned way—what I can catch
in lamp-lit windows shades undrawn. I like to hold words on pages
in my hands, or sprawled out across my Sunday morning bed, large
mug coffee-brimmed, everything bagel smothered with jalapeno cream
cheese. I get my best information from long conversations on floor pillows
after too much wine, too much weed, and so much laughter my face aches
the next day. From voices made possible by listeners like me, giggled
secrets, hand-written letters. From the way you touch my face, search
my eyes and whisper as though it matters what the neighbors hear.
 

 

I Never Want to Stop Looking

Head full of crazy and nothing to show for it. Try to tip
the oasis before desert again—parched tongues touch—fill up
so much, so much. Carousel-horse-vicious, no brass ring
achievement, not so lucky-lucky in…need to make sense, not

count Chinese food, or spin-spin dizzy and look at clouds: a rabbit,
a duck, and in that one a god. Let the dream be the dream free,
mirrored in blue-blue, reflecting back something special, something
unlike anything. I found my truth yesterday—shattered into two
million bits—at the center, reflected, gorgeous like honey.

 

 

 

Jenn Monroe is an assistant professor of writing and literature at Chester College of New England, a very small creative liberal arts college in New Hampshire. She holds an MFA in poetry from New England College. Her work is forthcoming in Sakura Review, and is included in recent issues of Permafrost, Big Lucks, and Shaking Like a Mountain, among others.