Joni’s looking at both sides of the clouds, and I wonder what could make me feel like I’m not walking on a marble. I’m hidden under the swirls of smoke from stolen cigars, though maybe I’ve stolen the smoke this time, and no, I don’t inhale, I know to hold clouds in my mouth and speak with marbles under my tongue. Isn’t laughter something like this? It seems Joni has nothing to say to me but she’s busy tuning up, and anyway, I always preferred “Carey” in the days when I knew how to hold a guitar and catch the eye of a sweet boy watching me flirt with songs. Yes, the last exhale left memory haze inside the ice at the bottom of my empty glass. Joni can sing about all the ways I didn’t know how to love, I can’t break a marble between my toes.
Who wants to hear your dreams?
Last updated on December 6, 2021
Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet and editor from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Treaty 6 territory), where she lives with her family and a judgmental tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet. Many years ago, she got a B.A. in linguistics that she currently uses to write love poems. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, and You are a Flower Growing off the Side of a Cliff: a chapbook about mental health and resiliency (League of Canadian Poets chapbook series). Her first chapbook, unless you’re willing to evaporate, is available through Prairie Vixen Press. She often tweets micropoems and creative encouragement as @milkcratejess.
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My song, to me, the way I need it sung