Tag: Jill Michelle

Two Poems by Jill Michelle

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Rite

n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom
with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
         —Ambrose Bierce

Two twenty-somethings
two years as honeys

under a gray-blue blanket
of Florida December sky

we stand—courthouse statue
looming over our too-thin

shoulders in this one photograph
of our wedding, snapped

by the justice of the peace in
St. Augustine, where we didn’t

need witnesses, so there was
no risk of offending any left

out relatives or friends.
You never asked if I was

one of those kids who’d
spun gauzy fantasies

cocooned teen dreams
of bank-breaking weddings.

I would have said, The vows
are all that matters. Maybe then

you would have kept them.

* 

I Spell out Divorce in Pixie-stick Sugar across Our Kitchen Floor
         after Jenny Holzer

You’ll be able to read it by
your own gaslight, so it won’t
matter that the power’s out
at the old country house to
which you’ve been booted
after unburdening yourself
across the dinner table tonight,
corduroyed mule, confessing
adultery before fixing a next
bite of the six o’clock supper
missed from the plate saved,
microwaved after kissing you
hello with half of my hair styled
by our four-year-old before I
tucked her into cartoon-covered
sheets alone, plastic menagerie
of Starburst-colored animal
barrettes forgotten until you’ve
left when brushing my teeth, I
startle at the mirror, can’t help
but laugh.

*

Jill Michelle is the author of Underwater (Riot in Your Throat, 2025) and Shuffle Play (Bottlecap, 2024) and winner of the 2023 NORward Prize for Poetry from New Ohio Review. Her newest work is forthcoming in RHINO Poetry, Salamander Magazine and Scavengers Literary Magazine. She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Find more at byjillmichelle.com.

Two Poems by Jill Michelle

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

Driven
after Papa Ibra Tall’s “Harlem”

We do this because
we cannot stop

can’t stop wanting both worlds
the one that pays

for food and rent
that fancy car

and the one that’s spent
conjuring beauty—

a chord structure instead
of a corporate one

that eyes-closed moment
of clock-stopped harmony

amid adult life’s trumpet-call
a reveille of worries.

Yes, for this stretch of song
we’ll forget

the parents, a pebble’s throw
from heaven

the kids, our rippling
worries over them.

For now, we play
play music

feel alive
live and feel

children ourselves
once again.

* 

Not Another One

You don’t want to read
another sexual

assault poem
and I never wanted

to be qualified
to write one

but here
we are.

*

Jill Michelle’s latest poems appear/are forthcoming in Brink, New Ohio Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and Valley Voices. Her poem, “On Our Way Home,” won the 2023 NORward Prize for Poetry. She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Find more of her work at byjillmichelle.com.