Poetry Summer 2019
fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Antoine Petitteville
Laura Apol
Easter Morning
& other poems
Taylor Dibble
A Masterpiece in Progress
& other poems
Julia Roth
Lessons From My Menstrual Cup
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Ceaseless Wind. The Drying Sheaves
& other poems
Nicole Yackley
Mea Culpa
& other poems
George Longenecker
I’m sentimental for the Paleolithic
& other poems
Taylor Gardner
Short Observations by Angels
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
No Thomas Hardy
& other poems
Joanne Monte
War Casualties
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Potato Harvest
& other poems
Steven Dale Davison
Wordsmouth Harbor Founder
& other poems
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
How I Named Her
& other poems
Greenheart
sunny ex
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Through the Valley of Mount Chimaera
& other poems
Linda Speckhals
Borderlands
& other poems
Lucy Griffith
Breathing Room
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
& other poems
Emily Varvel
B is for Boys and G is for Guys
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
Priceless Body
& other poems
Marte Stuart
Generation Snowflake
& other poems
S.J. Enloe
Kale Soup
& other poems
Meghan Dunsmuir
Our Path
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
What the Body Wants
and Does Not Want
I. Parted lips at wide doorways
parched and empty intimacies
mounds of poppy and lilac leaves
Black hands ; pale at palm and itching
touch me at the tip please
swallow my breath
don’t spit me
out
cacoon landing
what are woman body parts
disassemble
eyes rolled in filth
brown eyes ; sodden
Big belly empty womb
Priceless body
II. her body unfolded
tendons tight
but spilling outward
like a knotted shoelace
dug into with the inner side of
your strongest nail
inside there was a battle
but her body lay still
Silent
not singing
like when held
by dance and melody
not vibrating
like when limbs spread out
as the first of morning sunlight leaks through the blinds
His body curled into her
filled her with sound
that had no rhythm
the cucaw of a wide-winged
sharp-beaked eagle
searching for a quick snack
nothing that would make Him fatigued
the deep whistled cry
of a siren
rushing to beat death
those sounds were not meant to live in her
make her glow red from the inside
how would the world believe a quiet body filled with foreign sound?
III. I don’t sleep the same
once your scent has lifted from my sheets
and I can no longer breathe you in
Being touched scares me at first
The muscles in my back flex and my butt clenches
Then I come undone
like a song so well sung
the room vibrates afterwards
Run your fingertips in the warm
crease behind my knee
damp with sweat like your brow
when you burrow your face
into the crook of my neck
Show me other ways that I can bend
touch me and don’t touch me
and bring your lips so close
that when you whisper
your breath raises the hairs on my skin
forget that we exist except to exist in this moment
So taboo, just with you, won’t you . . . come through.
How does it feel to live
inside of me
a house that has been empty for years
How will you decorate my wombs
crash your angled hips into what is plush
into what is warm and dewy
and leave behind your sweet and fading smell
maybe if I hadn’t pressed my face into my pillow
and hungrily inhaled the memory of you
it could have lasted longer
but instead your face is fleeting
Sweet as it is
IV. Barren
belly bloated with air
Here is the mother of your land
Slain on it
skin melted into her soil and tears seeped into her veins
your eyes disdainful
for the love she once had for the earth
the songs she wept into her bosom
the dancing feet she padded into her ground
are now swept away and over and consuming her
you took the child away screaming and
Stripped the tenderness from her eyes
the virtue from her thighs
until she was child no more
but beaten but bruised but bullied and subdued
the dirt will not spring rose petals because it is saturated with blood
too heavy with melancholy to pretend
you were not the one who caused her ruin
you with greedy hands and disdainful eyes
God forbid you give back
even a crumb of what you’ve wrought from the womb of this earth
scatter like tumble weed in a desert
as she be deserted and lonely
and know not what company be like when it just stand there
cause it always be picking and nipping and grabbing at her fruitfulness
Oh she.
is bound to grow tired of you and roll you off her striped back
Patch up her wounds
Take her chosen few
The ones you watched suffer
with those eyes that suddenly turned blind
The ones humbled through suffering and blunt trauma
The ones you dared not help less you be less comfortable with yourself
Don’t you feel less comfortable with yourself?
Jhazalyn Prince
was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY where she earned her high school diploma at Academy for Young Writers before moving on to Amherst, MA, to earn her Bachelor’s degree at Hampshire College. There she studied Creative Writing as a source of healing for marginalized communities. She is a poet with special interest in interdisciplinary writing and exploring themes of maternal relationships, body image, race and inter-generational trauma to name a few.