Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash
Not brave enough to writein lyric, embodied dreamsI tremble in a flower’s vocabulary—
retract my hands like froma hot sky or suddenness
dreams which pass throughmy body are no different from hands
my life during deep waterswere long and unpaid
called my local paperto ask about marigolds
deep researched small birdsin trees and how to agree
are violets breathing if theirsternums only expand—
to a palatable degree I wearmy need like a husband
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About the writer
Jackie Braje. Jackie Braje is a Brooklyn-based poet, educator and arts administrator. She serves as the Chief Operating Officer at The Poetry Society of New York, a 501(c)-3 non-profit that produces a number of initiatives such as The New York City Poetry Festival, The Poetry Brothel, The Typewriter Project, and much more. She is also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Milk Press, and an MFA candidate in poetry at Brooklyn College. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, The Minnesota Review, The Quarterless Review, Stoneboat, Statorec, The Nottingham Review, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and the recipient of a 2022 Himan Brown Award.
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