Jessie Janeshek's first book of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). She is co-editor of the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College, Boston. Her poetry and reviews appear in Moria, Prairie Schooner, Washington Square, Passages North, Rougarou, and Review Americana. She is a freelance editor and also works as a writing instructor at the University of Tennessee.
Sorry, Wrong Number
(Blanche)
Hello, hello?
Can you help me please?
I'm a cardiac neurotic.
My trouble's erotic.
My daughter's in the Poconos
drinking Merlot.
An admirer of Hemingway
my husband's in Idaho.
I've no one to tell.
A bride, I was fire
afraid my nipples
would burn smoke holes
through my bodice's
old-world embroidery,
zirconium strings
ringing my knees,
my life Lucia di Lammermoor.
*
Plan of attack? No plan.
No attack. The honeymoon
rose, set all that.
Legs closed, I took to my bed
faking seizures. The doctor said I couldn't
sustain making love, please don't
touch her.
*
Every morning Charlie
crumbles my morphine
in orange juice
kneads my right shoulder
to pulp. The first time
he kissed my forehead
I turned my lips away.
Next day he sat me on top of him
porcelain doll on a stick
hula-girl Venus
rolling my hips.
He reads the mail
from my husband,
fish are biting and horses
do love a brook
sniffs the musk in my armpits
bites my breasts violet
sets me on the floor on all fours
bears down on me hissing
I hope your knees bleed bitch.
Lucy in Wien, Looking at Brueghel's Hunters in Snow
Dogs taunt the hunt
with their curlicued tails.
Peer toward the haze. Is that the tip
of a Romantic background castle?
Fated match of crack-the-whip
a child drops to the seafoam-chrome ice
stares up, concussed
to the seafoam-chrome sky.
Where would I be in this painting?
Slippery woman, mossy hair
sliding under my cap?
Baby sealed in a wine barrel
instead of a cradle?
High on the battlements
awaiting a sweet virgin singer?
She'll choke on my
deep-chocolate teacake
treble clef scratching her throat.
Classic
Time to write a poem
like a Warner Bros. film
fast-flash, all process
limbs of the body in check.
Don't come to the poetry chair
trussed up like Tom Powers
on his last visit home.
Reporters pick stories
out of silk pockets
chisel them into horsepills
your crowd washes down
with black gin. Speak easy,
thank talkies, thank Jack
you're not stuck in the bowery
chestnut shells twisted
by immigrant children.
Who says your Bogey
poems aren't erotic,
the knock-outs, the unholy three
Cagney, Edward G.
already parodying characters
2 years into the genre.
Make it to the top
you get modern architecture
a chrome bar you can hide
under the phonograph, a star
in your gut from the gat.
Joan Blondell slammed down toast
ran to the bathroom
came back in to another movie
3 days per month off for cramps.