This is the place of removal
where I reclaim my pieces:
(I entomb the wear & tear and give them a sea burial)
I rob my own grave for:
This is a memorial for the life
of an imitator.
This is an extrication of dreams
rattling inside a clunker.
This poem is a refurbished body writing glorious aberrations on ruled-paper decorum, pissing on the…
We are river stones
carved to the skeleton of winter
corralled by limestone bars
rolling around sediment basin
of compounded seasons
and braided stream channels
that write new landscapes
in eddies of silt, dust of universe
not built, but transmuted to self,
castaway flesh to the bone
the remains of powerful floods
is a sculpture of absence,
the steps where elemental giants trod
in rambling rock formations
worn smooth down to center
as fallen leaves streamline branch
trunk stands tossed and steadfast
like us stones in the perpetual river
Jessica Lee McMillan © 2021
For a stranger on the other end,
imagine your worst story
told from a cell block,
an immigration hold,
an empty house, a shelter
or the street
Gathering details
like picking up shattered glass
gathering tragedies
into a thin plastic bag, onto a form:
☒ your children were taken away
and your boyfriend beat them up;
☒ you have a price on your head
for converting religions or for being gay;
☒ you lost another grandchild to fentanyl
and the parents are not far behind,
the lost generations crippled
by trauma’s ripple effect
and cultural identity theft
The violences of…
MA Eng. Mama, Poet, Iconoclast, Word Nerd. Likes shiny things. Writes on Philosophy, Art, Music, Nature.