Transition: Poems in the Afterglow | 11 08 20 | Jenna Le

Jenna Le
November Air

I’m frazzled. My hair, snaggled,
stands on end like a raspberry’s.
When I lag on the Amtrak platform,
a man rasps, “Faster, asshole.”

Troubled, trampled
by the trompe l’oeil of the news cycle,
I’d like to travel to an isle tropical.
Yet I shrivel like a shrimp in a thimble.

I’d like to think what’s promised today
surpasses pom-poms and palmistry.
But I’m done quavering.
Henceforth, I’m singing whole note after whole note.

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018).

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