Jessie Janeshek's chapbooks are Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016) and Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming, 2017). Her full-length collection of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.
We Stare at Your Propped-up Corpse and Not the Camera
We’re a broadish yellow cult
handcrafted in bikinis
red Eva Joia sweatshirts.
We clean carry in foul weather
get our fevers on the lightbulb
lose all tit sensation
from imaginative sadness
and half-eaten Dairy Queen.
We sleep at the bear’s den
to gain proof of your haunting
out of whack and watching
Peter Pan revenge porn
obsessed with Jean Naté.
We have too much Florida blood
to warm to lunar landscapes
suck pink glitter from your syringes
cream our panties crying fat.
Long sleeves are regression
on examination tables
as you link us to your ringtone
with skeleton damask
and we will or will not save
your shaggy head, our dying day.