Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      November 14, 2018To MournJessica Venturi

      The difference between day and night is
      a thick, bold u in the center.
       
      Lips pressed tight together,
      and humming.
      Tastes like spaghetti
                 in October.
      Sweet tea in the summer
      on a porch that smells
      like menthol cigarette smoke.
       
      Or,
      Our tongue swelling big
      in the back of our throat
      stops the air
      from escaping our chest.
      Filling our stomach, filling
      our heart with
       
      No. No. No.
      It shouldn’t have been. It is
      and it shouldn’t be.
      N-n-n-o. She is, now she was.
      Never. Not. Nowhere. My
      mother is gone.
       
      And to grieve moves the mouth
      wrong.

      from #61 - Fall 2018

      Jessica Venturi

      “I write poetry because I want to make something beautiful out of the suffering. I write for the perfect word—for rhythm and rhyme and the way words feel in my mouth. I write to be heard and I write for the thrill of it. I write because I read. Because literature and poetry are magic. Because when I’m hanging on someone else’s words I feel wonder and yearning all at the same time. I was born and raised in California’s East Bay Area. I earned my BA in English literature from the University of Colorado, after many years of working odd jobs to stay afloat. I am now a graduate student in English at the University of Delaware. I have been a few different things in my life thus far, but there is only one thing I know that I am. I am a writer.”

      →