Yeah, that girl, the one with the swaying breasts
in the sequin dress, uh, halter, I dunno,
is that blood splatters across her top, uh no, the
glittering of sequins
swaying and jiggling to and fro, God, you’d think
I was drinking liquid acid not Scotch on the rocks,
maybe I’m just overtired, or just tired but I can’t,
I just can’t take my eyes off her swaying salmon pink and
blood-splattered top
that cover her enthusiasm so hypnotically. . . .
My heart is both object and verb,
and is lined with the tackiness of tomato-red blood.
Veins and arteries are the construct, my life
is the experience and the nattiness of blood,
and sinew, is taylor-made for pumping
almost casually to the disco-beat of life,
and our love courses through it all,
which is the anecdote and bleeds plot and point,
All I can think of is that
life is a lot of shit
mixed with stardust and blood,
as I continue to try to drink
my bloodlust sullenness away.
Originally published by Yellow Mama magazine, Black Petals Press, February 2020
Jennifer Lemming won Grand Prize for her poetry in the
Dancing Poetry Contest in 2019. Most recently she was a judge for the
Scholastic Art and Writing Awards (SAWA) North Dakota region in Winter 2021.
Her most recent blog post about living in North Dakota can be found by the
host’s site, Hudson Valley Writers Guild
