Author: Jessica Q. Stark

Jessica Q. Stark is a poet and educator living in Jacksonville, Florida. Her first full-length poetry collection, “Savage Pageant,” was published by Birds, LLC, in March 2020 and was named one of the best poetry books of 2020 by the Boston Globe and Hyperallergic. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks and her poems and/or illustrations have appeared most recently in Pleiades, Poetry Daily, Verse, Carolina Quarterly, wildness, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Hobart Pulp, Tupelo Quarterly, Glass Poetry Journal, and others. She is an assistant poetry editor for AGNI and the comics editor for Honey Literary. She teaches writing at the University of North Florida.

INNANET


Some days are fat, lucky
rabbit feet—

nuclear green for a man-
made assurance

tiny, bright limbs swing
on backpack ends

your hand, clasped around
a sound—as if you

could have it  

#

I await perfection and

watch for it willing to

cast off dead shrubs
in my pruning

this is not good soil;

it is prone to frost  

sunshine sickness of
the daily trudged up

for a what’s-it

and a cup of coffee

found memory,
found the shock

of compassion a wave

brot in a new set

of shells, skeletons

awaiting an
eager search—

scrolling image-nasty texts
with a knack

for identifying clickbait—a live

auction for a slice of ham,
a Living Social for

family funeral services, having

a LinkedIn  

your other shelves
catching onto the lingo

—too late

on the inside, we’re

INNANET eavesdropping,

sending discount
panties dwn spam

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