Poetry by Jessica Hudson

           Diana Gurley McGaw CC



Small World

             after the film The Florida Project

In this world behind the World, abandoned 
condos wash down asbestos pillows 
with lighter fluid. Burn in sight of the fireworks 
next door. The happiest place on earth.

In this world, blue-haired mothers are left
too young while their daughters converse & roam
the muggy wildlands, breathing alligators,
painting jelly on Wonder Bread with a soup spoon.

When mothers breed in this world, first they fill the tub
with bubbles & naked Barbies & a dry-haired girl
who shampoos her horse’s plastic mane instead of hers.
808 beats blunt in the air, clog the girl’s ears
for hours. Nothing peeps through the thin door.

In this world, the world is a lavender motel
where mothers befriend & beat one another
& grandmothers raise their daughters’ daughters
& daughters babytooth adults for dollars 
to buy a swirl cone to pass between their tongues
as the cream streams down the sides.

In this world, mothers hawk MagicBand slap bracelets
to vintage tourists. Sneak their little girls in
to the highends to gorge on continental bacon.
A strawberry & a raspberry at the same time. 
Yellow orange juice sloshing in a wine glass. ​


​


Springbok

Greta Gerwig cries through fuchsia 
bangs when the doctor tells her
she may never bear children

& she thinks I’ll never see him
crawl or cry or smoke a cigarette
or grow a mustache or kiss her 

when he thinks it’s too dark 
outside for me to see or 
see me cry or see me die

& through her magenta tears
I fall back to simple summers 
sitting before the TV, eyes wide

as another pair of lips dipped, 
spread, tasted each other, 
my hands in a puzzle box

caressing loops & sockets,
fingering knobs & holes,
unmatched keys & locks

tickling my teal-dusted palms,
listening for the right piece 
to kiss my fingers & whisper

i will fit
                   you see? 
                                        right there
​
​

Jessica Hudson is a graduate teaching assistant working on her Creative Writing MFA at Northern Michigan University. She is an associate editor for Passages North. Her work has been published in The Pinch, Pithead Chapel, and perhappened mag, among others.

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