Forest/woman/alone
The smell of wet clover.
The waves of birds: trill trill.
Some animal makes a shuddering sigh.
A bee furrows, checks all sides of the petal
like pulling a neckline over a shoulder.
Oh, I should
have brought
my knife.
Category: New Writing
Jane 1
Jane 2
About Jane / La Segua
This project reinvents two colonial myths rooted in racism and class from Costa Rica. The legends of La Segua and Los Cadejos were created to discourage early settlers from racial mixing. La Segua is a cursed woman, and Los Cadejos are ghosts or spirits attributed to following some people to scare or kidnap them.
This collection reimagines the myth. Now set in the late 20th century, this collection follows a woman named Jane, a flight attendant. We meet Jane throughout her life. These poems are fablelike in their manner and style to reveal layers of harassment and abuse to comment on the legacy of the 1950s oppression of women in the United States and what it meant for women to re-enter the workforce decades after. This is a morality tale about desire and fate.
Jane 3
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.
Jane 4
JANE (1968)
She awakens in a forest and walks up to a chorus
of schoolchildren holding sheet music. From the trees
fall musical notes—sixteenth, eighth, but nothing
whole. Now she takes a stroll down Rodeo Drive.
Her hair is done up into a hive like Brigitte Bardot,
she wears a mink stole draped over her shoulders.
From the Hollywood Hills, rows of boulders bulldoze
the Drive into Lacoste, Dior, and Balenciaga shops.
Down the street, a young woman drops to her knees
after being asked to leave one of the stores. She needed
a dress. She’s a mess. Listen to the shopkeeper
squeal. She stands in the street. Jane opens her eyes
as the captain announces, welcome to these friendly skies.
Jane 5
JANE (1984)
While applying lotion
upon her knees
we heard of Jane’s time
in the 1980s.
She was hired
when Reagan was elected
and Mary Lou Retton
was selected to appear
on the box of Wheaties.
Back then, she said,
there were so many men,
sex and drugs in every town,
but that time is gone.
It was a wild time,
she went on
and started to blush,
letting out a sigh
as the pilot walked by.
They glanced
at each other
a flirtatious dance.
I got back to work
and from the corner
of my eye I saw
Jane hunched over
having a good cry.
Jane 8
JANE (1972)
Don’t worry!
We’ll be in Vegas
in no time. The stewardess
is young. They must be
hiring underage girls,
she thought. It doesn’t
surprise her. Jane can’t
sit still, getting up
every few minutes when
she demands whiskey neat
to calm her nerves. She begins
to tell a woeful tale
about her husband.
The passengers begin
to gather and listen.
The crowd roars
in laughter. Something
about a Baptist convention,
a church bake-off,
and a girl named Eileen—
the eldest daughter of a pastor.
She stole away Jane’s husband,
Kip. Now, she had an itch
on her way to The Strip,
another drink or two. She was
determined to cut a bitch.
Jane 9
JANE (1974)
Jane is cursed.
After the divorce,
she fought two men
from first class. They smiled
as she passed, then each
took a turn slapping her
on the ass. She’s a stone
cold fox, one of them says.
She was new, and
nothing was said
for fear of reproach.
Alone in the forward galley
of the passenger lounge,
she sat, and from each side,
the men approached.
She had been manhandled,
cat-called—it was her place
as a working-class woman—
puckering and licking their lips.
She wobbled, shaken but quickly,
urging them away. Hushing her
still with his finger to her lips,
she closed her eyes and prayed.
Jane 10
JANE (1983)
After landing, she picked up her rental
from the Avis. Driving north on the Tollway
to catch the LBJ past Highland Park and Richardson
to meet Mick Jagger at the Olive Garden off Belt Line
Road. Traffic is stopped, and drivers stand outside their cars
watching a Beechcraft crash upon landing at Addison Airport.
Jane imagines herself suspended in her seat on a bubbling runway
of oil. The smell of leather feeds a pillar of fire from the fuselage.
Jane 13
JANE (1976)
She took the advice of a woman she met on the bus. She needed eggs and a chicken to be with a man she had lost to another. She never expected it would be her brother. She bought the necessary black candle and covered it in salt and poppy seeds. She chanted a melodic prayer and moved to the groove.
She did this for thirteen days tossing eggs and bones into the East River every night at 3 am. She waited and waited to be put back together with the man she’d lost for the second time.