Poetry By Jennifer Maloney

David Antis CC



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Miracle

Once when I was working two men trapped me in a car. The one in back said you’re mine now and you’re going to take it and I did the doors were locked and he was in the back with me and the one up front was watching through the rearview and I kept looking at him he had a toothpick he rolled it     back and forth    his lips    were the dark pink    of earthworms they were parted    moving        speaking words     with no sound     like the way my father used to pray and after I finished the man     in the backseat put his hands around my neck and squeezed and I kept looking    at the mirror   at his eyes    watching me   watching and then I     couldn’t see    anymore   it had gotten too dark  and  I heard a voice   maybe god’s voice   it said  hey. Come on.   And then it was cold again 

and I was sitting on the curb and the car was gone and I wobbled   upright   under the streetlamp my feet in the greasy black snow my ass   wet from it   and as I stood I looked up and saw   the moon    had risen    a little    had moved a bit further away     that was all

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The Year of Magical Drinking

(with thanks to Joan Didion)

The detox. The rehab. The six months. The relapse.
The stop-start, stop-start. The marijuana maintenance world tour. 
The one more. The last time. The next last time.

The two miscarriages. Stewed-in-utero. 
The brandy in the cupboard above the fridge. Medicinal.

The tears at the kitchen table. The best friend gone, 
you’re no fun anymore. 
The cigarettes drowned in an inch of warm beer.

The penis in my hand. My mouth. My head. 
The Black, White, half-erect, uncut, 
circumcised, bloody, 
very small, enormous, average, 
ubiquitous penis. The quotidian penis. 
The if x equals me, then y equals penis. 
The given. The constant.

The pills. The slow swallow. The one-by-one-don’t-go-too-fast-
don’t-take-too-many-at-once-you’ll-puke-it-won’t-work. 

Please god. Please let it work. Please don’t let me wake up.

The waking up.

The tears at the kitchen table. The bone-tired, dead-tired.
The giving up. The letting go. The knowing 

that I can’t. 
I can’t do this anymore. 

The first one day. The next 
one day. Another. Again.

Today.

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Jennifer Maloney writes poetry and fiction. Find her work in Anti-Heroin Chic, Ninth Letter, forthcoming in Craft Literary Journal and many other publications. Recent chapbooks include Maps of a World (Raw Earth Ink, 2025) and Red (Clare Songbirds Publishing, forthcoming 2026). Jennifer is a parent, a partner, and a very lucky friend, and she is grateful, for all of it, every day.


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