Poetry by Jessica Manack

    Flickr CC




WHAT I’D TELL YOU IF I COULD


I wish I could name what happened 
so I could bury it now that it’s dead. 

I wish I’d imprinted on anyone else. 
All I know is that when my body awoke, 

you were there. The sun illuminating only us.
Why do people always ask about our first kisses? 

The ones that were forced on us, 
that we gave to the undeserving? 

I’d rather be asked about my last kiss, 
the one I meant, the one I was good at, 

fingers threading so it didn’t have to end. 
Girls are little spiders, working the fibers, 

weaving, joining. I remember you telling me about 
the God’s Eyes you’d make at summer camp. 

The way they were supposed to remind you 
that God was always watching, whatever you did. 

The way you learned the world was full of 
temptations you needed to avoid. 

The way you said, whatever there is to taste, 
get out of my way, I have been put here to taste it. 





I LOVE YOU


Under every bridge is a secret museum,
graffiti ghosts of each kid who first found courage there, 
first felt the urge to impress someone, trying out the wobbly 
songs of themselves, SUMAC and MFONE and RAEL*S, 
all those little whorls and squiggles like the first steps 
of toddlers, sooty petroglyphs showing them grow sure 
of their footing. Without asserting ourselves in words, 
do we even exist? Did I exist? I was so tired I wasn’t sure.
And when you looked at me you could see it,
how tired I was of how tired I was making myself,
and you said, Honey. Not Sweetie or Dear, but
“Honey. You just need to go for a long walk.”
No one ever told me to do anything good for me.
People blew smoke in my face, offered me
beers or pills, sandwiches of French fries 
piled high on hunks of butter-drunk bread.
And so I tried it, walking down along the river,
feeling my feet undo their knots, work out their math.
Under the bridge, I watch a train pass across the river,
a slow line of coal cars doing their duty, full of the dreams 
of the kids who’ll never make it out of the mountains,
the kids from Rupert and Rainelle who can’t find the path,
unlike this spiderweb of options in which I’m paralyzed.
Maybe you meant I needed to spend time as a ghost,
exist in the interstices, train my tongue to praise. Maybe you knew 
someone needed to greet those dreams, so I take my hat off
and nod as they go past, blow a kiss as they cough along the tracks,
tell them, 
I hope you make it all the way to the Pacific, 
clean the soot off in that blue water. 
Tell them: 
May someone someday wish you health, and may
you warm yourself in the glow of that implausibility.



​

GIRL RACER


Too well she knew the life
outside the law, the thrill
that shines in moonlight, the fight
between monotony and pride.
The rides she’d taken in childhood, 

legs dangling next to a cursing father,
a grumbling uncle, red-faced, impatient,
their licenses long-revoked,
were nothing she’d replicate now.
Their radios sang to the clink

of the Jack resting on the dash, on the rocks,
of the bottles she found under the seats
while digging for pennies. She loves
the feel of the road too much
to seek it in an altered state.

Still, she’s never totally safe – 
unless she’s doing ninety she feels
like a snail. What she wants is the play 
of the chase, to be naughty 
and spotted on radar.

Until her rearview dances 
with spinning lights, the world
pales before her, stretches thin,
grey strips of chewing gum.
But to run is to court them, 

to be caught is to do the right thing, 
to erase the past and give herself 
up to the law, already gripping her license, 
certain that this is the place, 
this moment the time.




Jessica Manack holds degrees from Hollins University and lives with her family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared widely in literary journals and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is the author of GASTROMYTHOLOGY (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024). Keep up with her work at: http://www.jessicamanack.com