“Mending” © Bonnie Matthews Brock
Twentieth Century Fantasy
You imagined me in silver lamé and platform boots striding through mimosa and lime trees – made me into your unattainable, pin-me-on-the-wall poster that could be lost in space as you grew up and I aged into a retro collectable.
Now every valentine is only as valuable as its data and love is an advertiser’s algorithm burrowing deeper into your buying habits, I stay in sewing the fallen sequins back on to my A-line mini-skirt. I want you to tune out, old style, turn off your I-pad, computer and mobile phone, strip them of their gold and plant them beneath a gorse bush — listen to the fat bees gathering pollen unassisted by the buzzing of machines.
The future is always about finding a way to fall back in love with your first dreams.
Jenny Middleton is a working mum and writes whenever she can amid the fun and chaos of family life. Her poetry is published in several printed anthologies, magazines and online poetry sites. Jenny lives in London with her husband, two children and two very lovely, crazy cats.
Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well a school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University.
Brilliant!
Ah, Jenny Middleton’s poem is a haunting dance through the fog of youth’s desperate embraces, where the haze of dry ice mingles with the ephemeral nature of young love. It evokes a time when each kiss was a gasp for connection amidst the swirling uncertainties of adolescence.