Tulips lift toward the sun
not as lips parting,
but cycloptic eyes, self-blinding
to defy dozens of faces
that peer directly inside,
expecting the return of some
preened reflection – a smiling
twin, mouth open to say some-
thing of how it feels
to kiss one’s self in the mirror,
then gossip about the licorice
on your breath, your aptitude
for culling unsaid words with anisette.
Tulips pull toward one another,
as halves conjoined by funhouse glass –
contracted lungs that cannot distend.
Their swallowed tongues trigger reflex,
taming two pulses in one shared breath.
Jessica Furtado is a poet, photographer, & owner of the popular Etsy shop All You Need is Pug, whose products have been featured in Fortune, Daily Mail, InTouch Magazine, FYI Pets, & Cesar’s Way, and whose shop was noted as an Etsy Featured Seller. Her work has previously been published under the pseudonym JJ Lynne, with photography and micro-poem collages appearing in CALYX, Muzzle, PANK, and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Her writing can be found in apt, Hobart, A Narrow Fellow, Rust + Moth, Spry, and Stirring, among others. Jessica is co-editor of poetry for the literary journal Paper Nautilus and works by day as an Early Childhood Literacy Librarian. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs.
He made it possible. He was formerly a fabulist.
He was faceless, but he was ugly, graceless
and he made everything disappear.
aligning
as fingers
deftly dance
on checkered
smooth plastic
disco stage
Adam’s countenance: beer cask-heavy
his eyes: glazed shallots
his smile: a split itself
Now take away the need
for moisture and the deteriorating
qualities of autumn. The veins
and stems will release as well.
Take away the release. Take
away the seasons.
When Taylor Swift was at the gym in Japan
she watched the muscled back of a man
moving up and down a heavy machine
made by other heavy machines for men.
of spontaneous human combustion,
of pictures with the Cherry Hill Mall Santa,
of a stapler after getting my wrist stuck to my teacher’s green bulletin board,
and on the tv
a drag queen
sharing her recipe
for sun tea
asks us if we want to
watch her take a break
and we take a break
Honeywell closed their Minnesota plant quietly
and the addition of warning stickers on album covers
would save the children along with D.A.R.E., Nancy
and Tipper directing the conversation, for some reason.
I read, I traveled, I, Lina, thief’s daughter, a discarded toy by the campfire
at night, my planets – burned by sparks,
burned by coincidences, in my eyelashes – stalagmites of ashes.
Because Phil Collins is for fools and old ladies.
Because the ocean’s too wide a body of water
for a commando to cross alone. Because gentlemen
never kiss and tell, and soldiers never share
their kill count. Because you teach the meaning
of words like ‘amorous’ and ‘varnish’ and ‘leave.’