Three Poems by Jessie Janeshek & Art by Alison Haag

Annual Verification

The descent of Louise Brooks matches my mood
dupes me into thinking the cat’s legs won’t go out.
The pink sting is done forever    it’s histrionics
it’s moving history
another night coming on like a clone
swollen face and maybe my expletive phase.
You say self-indulgence
a violation of contract.
I pretend you’re moral support now
like you’re show business.
I can’t be timed or tamed
sunset pool parties and before that
the rubber breast in the pediatrician’s office
felt nothing like a real breast.
Where we lived the cats got old
pissing on the butterfly bush
in the humility
big lightbulbs lining the vanity
fights over ginger ale
that first sex sensation a raft between my legs.

Remember the smell of the ocean
how I wanted to chew on the pearls
the illegal neon drinks at the beach?
I wouldn’t fight for my life in the ocean
I’d just ignore the disease
walk past the gothic house in the heat.
They turned the electricity off
they left the stroller stopped outside
like settling back into a sad Kansas life.
I want the shine of a cop car
of a shattered cassette on the bike trail
I rode before I vanished.
I want Louise Brooks to stay 20 forever.

Every night we go at each other
every day act like we forget
every nap I dream of lockers unlocked
running through the tramps in the tropics scenes
running through snow ballets in my stockings.
I snow. I know I’m still alive if I cry when we fuck.

Louise Crooks Too

Sure I’m showing you a template
of how to make my heart glad
every night I open    the locker that won’t lock
every night I try to drop a rubber breast.
I keep books inside the locker
I think you won’t read them
all I want to do    is drive a new black car
before the flies get to me
but time flies when you’re nothing
shuffle, make it stop.
I rip the two of us in half
I say something like we’re too noble
for our noble experiment
but it’s hard to think.   
Let’s us get together
and really I’m a pussycat
seems like it’s New Year’s Eve.
I just touch up my roots
I do a deep dive        into the dancing girls
who slandered me and haunted
who ate chocolate angel donuts
in yellow lemon leotards.
It was cruel and iconic    but I want to go back
a blonde pseudonymph    but I want my hair glossy black
just like a hood ornament.

I cut my hair in swimming pool dressing rooms
that smell like the ocean.
but I want to chew on pearls
tickled as hell.
I guess the dollar dance at weddings
means something to someone.
They left me drugged in the men’s room for days
but I might flame across the stage
in my canary feathers
like the pornstar-cum-cowgirl
who saw death in the west
but didn’t want to wait for it.

Witchboard

You say it’s a joke switchboard
think of other women, pneumonia, 1986
but I think of some skin so I dream of sex
sad slice of sun shining through
and the psychic impaled on the sundial.
I’m so tired of my body and hunger.
I’m most alive in the pit when I dream California
with no latch and a holiday.

After the fall we stay friends
after the one night stand time can’t stop
I watch the cancan girls pamper themselves
chubby legs a misnomer
over and over.
It used to matter if you married 
in your tight dress 
or if in your abundance you were stabbed with a stomacher.

I see god’s shadow at the construction site
where men knows how to fight
where men know how to berate us
until the axe drops from the sky
another West Coast scene
homecoming queen headless
crowned in absentia.

There’s the mystery of how I could get love but I don’t
how it’s just too much upkeep
how I’d rather scrub slobber
off the yellow play telephones.

I want to touch more 
in my silky peach robe.
so I dig out the Ouija     hot in the hallway
every dream as pink as Theda Bara’s flesh
or coitus interruptus.