Jess L. Parker
CONTACT:
Email: jessleap10@gmail.com
BIO:
Jess L Parker is a poet and strategist. Originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jess lives in Madison with her husband, son, and French Bulldog. Her work has appeared in Bramble, Poetry Hall, Millwork, Wallop Zine, and elsewhere. Jess holds a B.A. of English and Spanish from Northern Michigan University, an M.A. of Spanish Literature from UW-Madison, and an MBA from Concordia University.
PUBLICATIONS:
Star Things, forthcoming Fall 2021. Link to publisher’s website.
Poetry
Saturn Rising
We had much to drink and more
to climb. There was a moonrock
and radish uphill; sliced and wide
open was the sky.
We wanted to see the satellite,
a teetering overgrown saucer
twitching as if on its way to your tongue
for a taste— a new datum, to be loved
as intricately as Saturn’s rings are particular
up close, and held as tightly as they are
together from afar. That night was our
telescope. We scraped our knees inching
toward the lens, wiping the clouds clean
to witness tomorrow poke holes
through sky, flicking light on a still-blue
pond. Or are they pebbles on the bottom
blinking up?
Their reflection, a Morse code city,
paging constellations with their
off —
on.
First appeared as a 2019 Kay Saunders Emerging Poet Award Finalist
Moonless
It was dark and balmy when you abandoned.
No speck of bright night star to guide me,
nor a beckoning sky beam to anchor a bad day.
You could say that I was moonless—
bit a chunk of night and couldn’t chew through it.
You knew it but remained to humor me
‘til I couldn’t be humored.
It was rumored you were last seen with a cocktail
mumbling on stardust, waxing tragically and moonstruck,
before falling from the earth completely,
you were fumbling with the car keys.
Erring on the side of agony I wander with a ghost
of gravity. Semi-circling my ache, I tie a noose around it
casually. Leave it on the island where you left me,; on the beach.
Before the silver bleached, the lights went out completely.
First appeared in Wallop Zine Issue I.