Poetry by Jane Riley

Image by Rebecca Cann / www.rebeccacann.com

as exhibited

ways instead toward gems and jewels, gold and glass powerful powerful writ on my chest can i say to you that a mantra, my muscle, doesn’t wither, knows it’s true, we can solve each other’s problems by making a public between us and whipping them there

 


 

cow

is substance; the redness of a cow an accident. the thoughts of a cow are blasphemes; the taste of a cow is single. i am wrong to forget people and the capacity for low tissue and hard suspicion. these come to me through a fence. but my survey is no threat. a person needs a process and a line and i can guess them. it is not four legs and deep-splotched color and a tuft-tipped switch. it is pageant and remove and day-through-day. this reaches me like a mannequin. the self can be so full: i am wrong to forget thought forget tissue forget need.

 


 

rejoinder

when we hit each other it was for art, and when we cried it was because the art was good and the blows go on. sat there with names and freedoms like no one will have in two years, strike-length apart, kiss me goodnight. our work fit to tape: in profile, chair-shaped and mugging tough, but your eyes were open, and my eyes were open. loving me, an abrasion. hit us pretty hit us simple hit us gone do the blows go on

 

 



Jane Riley is a writer and poet residing in East Lansing, Michigan. She is twenty-five and hella trans.