Lacking heat, I line my ribs with decorative votives, light them, and forget to say a prayer. A service of lips reading words that slide away like the difference between beeswax and paraffin. Somewhere above my kidneys, I create faith from drips of wax, chant the litany of internal organs, let flame burn out my bones. Let’s make cups of tea for the sacrament of procrastination: it is fully a list of tasks and fully a list of daydreams. Place checkmarks under my tongue. My love, tell my spine how it knows when I have done enough to feel safe.
The day has no itemized list but it must be completed
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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