Jenna Le
¡Almas Hermanas Mías!
for Delmira Agustini, on the centennial of her death
Delmira is dead.
Red as a geranium
her blood-soaked head.
Two termites of lead
bored through her cranium
and now she’s dead.
She shared her bed
with Enrique, a maniac
who turned her head.
They were one month wed
when her born Italian
wits woke: You’re dead
to me, Quique, she said
and left. This millennium’s
blue-eyed figurehead,
she lived, wrote, without dread.
Now she's gone subterranean,
hauled anchor, is dead.
Sisters, keep a wise head.
Artifacts
The door’s ajar. I hallucinate a closed zipper.
The planets are out of phase. I picture a jar
of India ink. Your interference annoys me.
I envision you in a gown of crimson moire.
You jingle keys in your pocket. I feel susceptible.
You move to scratch an itch. I see a ghost.
The matrix is too coarse. I feel truncated,
as if someone lopped my head off of its post.
Your belly fat swamps my field of view. I wonder,
is your name an alias? Is your skin a disguise?
The weather’s drought-dry, making electric currents
arc and spike. Corduroy swims before my eyes.
Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), which was a Small Press Poetry Bestseller. Her poetry, fiction, essays, book criticism, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Measure, Pleiades, and 32 Poems. She was born and raised in Minnesota.
Return to January 2015 Edition
for Delmira Agustini, on the centennial of her death
Delmira is dead.
Red as a geranium
her blood-soaked head.
Two termites of lead
bored through her cranium
and now she’s dead.
She shared her bed
with Enrique, a maniac
who turned her head.
They were one month wed
when her born Italian
wits woke: You’re dead
to me, Quique, she said
and left. This millennium’s
blue-eyed figurehead,
she lived, wrote, without dread.
Now she's gone subterranean,
hauled anchor, is dead.
Sisters, keep a wise head.
Artifacts
The door’s ajar. I hallucinate a closed zipper.
The planets are out of phase. I picture a jar
of India ink. Your interference annoys me.
I envision you in a gown of crimson moire.
You jingle keys in your pocket. I feel susceptible.
You move to scratch an itch. I see a ghost.
The matrix is too coarse. I feel truncated,
as if someone lopped my head off of its post.
Your belly fat swamps my field of view. I wonder,
is your name an alias? Is your skin a disguise?
The weather’s drought-dry, making electric currents
arc and spike. Corduroy swims before my eyes.
Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), which was a Small Press Poetry Bestseller. Her poetry, fiction, essays, book criticism, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Measure, Pleiades, and 32 Poems. She was born and raised in Minnesota.
Return to January 2015 Edition