Moon Song

Jennifer Juneau

night blooms, pitchy. if there is a voice out there chanting pithy vespers to tranquilize
evening’s pixilated mane, clearing its throat to recite, call it by my name.

center my pose under your loaf, dun moon—mother goddess you—like sparkling fruit
a vine-ripe bulb of muscadine. i’ll shine like a marbled goblet of wine: plump & plum
            a still, still life

but never, never dumb in your full-bodied light. o, mother, mother moon
with your glinting skin
materialize out of flotage & brume, unveil the slack masterpiece that i am
            minus your gloss.

feed me!  am i noth-
ing to you?  goddess, you are my life
& i, the gilded progeny
            am an overwrought structure, carved by nature, curved
& nurtured
            a stilted fixture, whim of your stature, i am indebted
to you, would fall to bed—
would wed—would marry you! dazzle me like juliet beseeching

a wary but better-for-it romeo, don’t take me slow, make me soon, my huntress,
            fortuitous moon

bend here, not there, here. render me splendid—but never a fool—here,
nearer
near

night blooms, pitchy
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

Driving it Home and Keeping it There

Jennifer Juneau

My straitlaced drift fazed you & erased the mark
I had intended. You scoffed at the love song I wrote.
I stood watch: a watch, all boots & a coat
as you left our hotel room unlit & left me in the dark.

If I bottlerocket lines you’d never split
but stay in spite of order or size of font.
For me to be unique all that I want
is a start. An illusionist & fit

I’d pen wet gems you’d strain to see
I’d let love letters rest upon a shelf
disguised as art. Pursuit—does it belie a needful self?
Or does courtship flatter the ego, what does it achieve?

On second thought stay free.
Love scares me.

& erased the mark
I had intended
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

Vanishing Act

Jennifer Juneau

The morning I lost you in Vörösmarty square
I was searching for a pharmacy. Little
did I know you were blending in somewhere
among the musicians and the mimics.
Little did you know I had woken with a flare-
up of morning sickness.
You weren’t the type to sport a wedding band
(although I didn’t need a husband).

I found you hidden under a New York Yankees cap.
You took my hand to walk the promenade.
Instead I headed back to our room to take a nap
and make use of the purchase I had made.

As I slept the expecting woman turned the white stick blue.
My inert body’s soul was comprised of two.

The morning I lost you in Vörösmarty square
Digital landscape from photos
©2017 Michael Dickel

Jennifer Juneau
Parkside Lounge
New York, NY

Jennifer Juneau is the author of the poetry collection More Than Moon, due out in 2018 from Is a Rose Press. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction, the Million Writers Award, a Sundress Best of the Net Award, and has been published in magazines such as the American Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Columbia Journal, Diaphanous, Evergreen Review, Pank, Seattle Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She lives in NYC where she is active in poetry and prose readings in Brooklyn and on the Lower East Side.  

Find Jennifer on Twitter
Jennifer’s blog: Jennifer Juneau