bleed out every
month, these: my near sight,
the roman nose of my father
uninhabited I am
what good my mouth too full
of teeth, what good these hands,
and my long fingers never clasped
become untenanted I am become
under soft-skulled head, my unfilled
and never-emptied breasts, what good
their bounce, what good the green eyes
an outgoing tide a moon never waxing
unpassed, the blonde curls:
look at me
in the mirror of my bleeding
I am become an ocean of only
Jenny Minniti-Shippey is the Director of Development for the Contemporary Irish Arts Center Los Angeles (CIACLA), Director of the Coyote Creek Writer’s Residency, and served as the Managing Editor of Poetry International from 2009-2020. She is the author of 2018 San Diego Book Award finalist, After the Tour, from Calypso Editions; Done Dating DJs, winner of the 2009 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, presented by the Munster Literature Centre; and Earth’s Horses & Boys, from Finishing Line Press. Her writing has appeared in Salamander, Spillway, Cider Press Review, Tar River Poetry, and others.
