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About the Author:
Jesse Nissim lives in Oakland, California, where she teaches at California College of the Arts and works in an old-fashioned stationery store. Her poems have appeared in 26, 580 Split, Borderlands, Fourteen Hills, Mad Hatter's Review, New American Writing, and other journals. New work is forthcoming in Five Fingers Review. Contact: jessnissim@gmail.com.
from Alphabet for M
Dear Paper Moon
I finally located your starting point. Fixed
at the base of the body where standing happens.
Trying to land, her two legs
kicked eight corners of the room.
How? Christmas cactus reflected in night glass.
The house after everyone has left still holds
the scents of the guests. A picture of a
neck brace at Thanksgiving dinner
sitting stiff and alone
a whole kitchen filled with cakes.
Your knees to the side to avoid the swinging
door. The lost taste of cake and pie
Because there was not language for it.
The anxiety of repeated tests and the twenty-four-
hour diner. Barbies glued to the smoky bathroom
walls. The waiters mean and high.
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