BIO
Jennifer Lobaugh lives in Southampton, NY with her dog and too many Halloween decorations. Her poems have recently appeared in The Knicknackery and Rust + Moth. Her chapbook squall won the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc. 2014 Best Book of Poetry award and is available from dancing girl press.
Black Bear Creek
it was drenched in the drowsy of Pontotoc hymnsong
the sugar of yearning, the shudder of youth
it was ripe lips and callow flesh down by the creek bed
calamitous vesper, a ransom in bloom
and she still communes with the ghosts of the prairie
still carries that locket in knots at her throat
but memories grow heavy—she plucks them like stone fruit
craving their sweetness and cursing the June
Saltwater
after Alfonso Ossorio’s Unsuccessful Tow
Sundays skirt me marble-eyed,
despite my pronged intentions.
Clawed things grimace, stiff in mid-flail,
lacking inspiration now. We are caught
up in the undertow, yellow
teeth knocked loose like orphaned dominoes.
Seashells, eggshells, collarbones—
such frangible asylum.
I will build my jagged shelter
from shards of circus-colored glass.
*****