Category: Violence

• The meadow prefers no trespassers

  or, To Donald Trump and all the other letches throughout my long life, starting at age 11 and continuing far longer than anyone would expect It is not for nothing that I seek payment for you to come near my soft body. It is a design to hold you off, just so, make you think…

  Jenifer

  October 22, 2016

  Childhood, From Hafiz, Grief, Memory, Nature, Political struggle, Public, Seasons, Violence

  poetry

• I think of love

  I think of love as something that grows form as it ages, sometimes firm, sometimes round, broadening, ambling if allowed. I think of love as an elemental discovery, unwrapping itself time and again, ever revealing eccentricities, hope, a whipped dog who greets the morning with joy. Yes, even then. I think of love as the…

  Jenifer

  August 26, 2016

  Aging, Death, Grief, Love, Meditation, Poem sampler, Public, Violence

  poetry

• Fear and hope are like two wings of a bird

  Today I woke up afraid, hope struggling to be born on this very brink, for my sons, for my city, for my unborn grandchildren (who may choose to never come forth, so unpleasant are we), indeed for my world — for all that is prized, hard fought won conceded cherished revised overturned allowed to decay…

  Jenifer

  July 10, 2016

  Ancient, Grief, Love, Poem sampler, Public, Violence, Yoga

  poetry

• Why is the woman with the dreadlocks looking away?

  It came to me in a flash as I saw your black body escaping past the marsh, the others turned toward me, running too, that you alone saw away past the mire perhaps a thing to fear, perhaps a deeper knowing, perhaps the future unraveling like a flower, or a tornado whipping us under. I…

  Jenifer

  May 21, 2016

  Art, Death, Grief, Memory, Violence

  poetry

• Simple grief

  bruised inside unable to feel my edges the weight dyed into me now, a flaw a hollow bell ringing itself, silent

  Jenifer

  March 26, 2016

  Death, Friendship, Grief, Love, My window at night, Violence, Yoga

• Girl with father in emergency room, 1983

  This is the dance we made together, when justice broke open on our laps. How we spun that night — me shifting, you spilling, our learning together that wild-beating fear — boiled as one into a speck, set to carve our way through years, to now, and on. As the stars rise through the night,…

  Jenifer

  March 15, 2016

  Childhood, Disability, Grief, Memory, Violence, Work life

  poetry