JANE (2046)

A divorced woman rich with misfortune
robed in silvery rococo silk stands

when from behind a darkling vine through the Rose
of Sharon Bushes, an eagle’s talon dives down.

Rings of gold cover her
bitter, withered hand.

Winter has peaked
for most of the year.

She goes afloat
when grasped by the throat

leaving only
a cockring behind.

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by Ruben Quesada

Ruben Quesada is the editor of a hybrid collection, Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry. He is the author of Revelations and Next Extinct Mammal: Poems. His writing appears in The New York Times, Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kirkus Review, and Harvard Review. He has served as an editor for AGNI, PANK, The Rumpus, and Pleiades and as a poetry blogger for The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. He teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Antioch University-Los Angeles and for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.