“Expiration Date” © Jury S. Judge
‘The meek shall inherit the Earth”
even a cloud leaves a shadow
in my dream a bird builds its nest in my steel toed boots
and one day, these pages will press clovers with the weight of other
books and maybe time.
both growth and grief are lurkingso i am turning over memories like rocks,
even a cloud leaves a shadow
all the while,
the light of the moon shining on the cave wall reveals a hidden door, with the turn of a keydust covered pieces of myself sigh with relief
— though now, as i try to rest, my heart slowly thumps in between my ear and the pillow.
in the room with one chair i am always standing.
the cobblestones, tell me,
i used to be a mountain
i have asked before- if something changes when
you share it with someone.
sending out pigeons every afternoon when the sun sinks.
tying letters to their remarkable ankles.
hoping, half of me, can get to you before the sun rises.
if i am burning the past, it has to grow into something new and green eventually.
a box of matches still wrapped in plastic, sits on my makeshift nightstand
i put everything you ever gave me in a drawer over the bridge with the bottom already falling out.
the sun sets again , i have a thought- i want to overcome my feelings of inadequacy.
then i don’t mean overcome like a knight slaying a dragon, i mean like a child petting a dog.
an almost indistinguishable act of understanding
the dent in the car is shaped like a kiss
i will befriend this animal, baring his teeth at even the sight of skin he is starving but can’t let himself eat out of your trembling hand
you’re staring at the white light of your glowing empty page and you are startled by the cold, aplace in me that used to be warm, feels cold.
in a book i read as a child, they say once you are made Real, all of your hair will be loved off, and your eye missing too.
so i tell myself that this loss is only a result of love.
i read a line of a poem as an answer “the vocabulary of loss is the dictionary”
the language of joy is not language at all
rather than your body– i keep books on the right side of my bed
1.
i act like im trying to solve something every night now, floss between my teeth i am wiggling at the gum of an answer and biting down on anything in between my teeth. quiet children have strong jaws, i hardly spoke until the second grade but on my chest is my giant heart beating too fast and loud. how something can be precious and wasted is maybe why they are all writing songs. stories taped twice over, so as not to forget.
2.
i mutter my grandfather’s prayer and wonder if he sees a face on the moon.
relief slides its hands over your shoulders, to think of someone other than yourself.
longing, like something tender begging to be prodded.
wanting, someone to stay. if you don’t remember ill try to remind you, but my body is biting down on itself like an enormous jaw
3.
starting to feel anger, collecting all the spoons i can find in the kitchen and making myself a silver nest. i have nothing to sit on. flowers have always died, the difference is I keep the petals and you don’t. comforted, now by some red blood on some large screen and someone else’s fear.most of the stars in the sky are already dead, some others might be planets. one mourning dove sits on the power line- like a small god touching only the veins.
4.
some small soft animal touches my cheek, i can hardly hold the loss so im writing letters to you (i cannot forget the poem i memorized for you) \ i grind my teeth together in my empty bed, chew up the parts of this that i can remember fondly, and swallow it all with whatever tears my eyes can spare.
digging my hands in the dirt– i imagine i will somehow find my way back to you, then i think that might not be true
5.
( it is unfair of me to pluck these seeds from the ground and will them to grow with no soil. no organ playing no candles lit. just the shallow dull hum of a radiator, the moon, just moon, shining through the window.)
i don’t need luck
i am waiting for the inevitable forgetting
head to my chest i whisper
joy, like most animals, has a habit of returning .
eventually, the elevator door opens and stalls as no one walks off it.
i’ll see you the next time, when i find you or you find me, it’s sad but i’m almost sure,
the garbage man has angel wings covered in dirt and
filtering the light.
now there are only two cups in front of us, my arms folded under the table and your sword on
the table.
somehow feeling lucky even having lost , wanting very badly to go home and at the same time feeling a sharp sense of incongruence.
Frankie Elliot: “I am a poet and interdisciplinary artist, a transgender man, a novice birdwatcher and chess player- and this summer, I had brain surgery to correct a malformation in my skull that had caused a cyst to form in my spinal cord. For years, I lived with chronic pain and neurological symptoms that interfered with my day to day life. The few weeks before surgery, when I could no longer work and spent most days confined to bed, writing and drawing were the only outlets that I could process what I was feeling with. Poetry gave me a way to articulate the feelings that came with that experience, and continues to be a grounding force in my recovery.”
Jury S. Judge is an internationally published artist, writer, poet, and cartoonist. Her “Astronomy Comedy” cartoons were published in Lowell Observatory’s publication, The Lowell Observer. She was interviewed on the television news program, “NAZ Today” for her work as a cartoonist. Her artwork has been widely featured in over one hundred and fifty magazines, including the covers of, Blue Mesa Review, Elements Review, Glass Mountain, and Levitate. She has also been interviewed by Streetlight Magazine and The Antonym. The City of Flagstaff selected her art for a public art opportunity where her art was displayed on traffic signal cabinet boxes located at two different intersections. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. In addition to art and photography, her passions include hiking and traveling to exciting, new destinations.