Poetry by Jessica Whipple

Katherine Squire CC




Free Couch


She wants to be remembered.

This is not a feeling that is noticeable on the

stiff fabric of her face.            Write a poem about 

what you know, someone says,             like how there are 

rivers, but she has only seen the small ones.      That is okay.            

Be the thing, someone says, that we all sit on,         it is asked of her 

in a dream where she is not allowed to answer.     That is okay. 

There was a time when nobody used to say,        your mother 

has always had legs like that.          She never expected to        

always               hoped                    to            use such a sentence. 

Now it is the only kind of sentence she knows.              She was 

cigarette skinny.  She is now-slouched              cushions. 

To be loved is to be defeated                    gently. 
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She has held heavy. She has stood still. She has leapt out of cars.

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Jessica Whipple is a poet and author of two children's picture books: Enough Is... (Tilbury House 2023, illust. Nicole Wong) and I Think I Think a Lot (Free Spirit Publishing 2023, illust. by Josée Bisaillon). Her work for adults has appeared in print and online literary magazines, most recently Philadelphia Stories, ONE ART, McSweeney's, and Gastronomica: The Journal of Food Studies. "Splinters," appearing in Door Is a Jar, received a Best of the Net and a Pushcart nomination. She lives in PA and inhabits the places where picture books and poetry intersect. Find her online @JessicaWhippl17.


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