Poetry by Joan Glass

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Grief in Quarantine
For Julia

If she were alive now,
I could try to love her the way 
I am told to love everyone now:
guardedly, and from a distance.
Maybe I could keep her safe.

But if I’m being honest,
I would probably quarantine her
too hard, bolt the doors,
crush her against my ribs
until the fever set in.

She would die anyway,
and I would too.
Both of us using 
our last breaths to wish for
an actual way 
to love someone
and stay alive.





The Memory of Water

When salt lakes disappear, 
you can wander for miles
across the memory of water.
Unless you’ve experienced it,
you don’t know that when 
the lake dries up,
you can still drown.

In my kingdom of salt,
driftwood litters the crystal field
like the scattered bones 
of unnamed monsters.
Their broken teeth 
line the boardwalk.
Boats transform into
the stilled rocking chairs 
of grieving mothers.
The sky, formerly 
a pretty veil, now 
resembles a fortress of locks,
one for each day 
here without you.

A disoriented man
wanders along the shore,
turning over shells 
with a stick. 
Maybe he searches 
for signs of life.
Or perhaps, 
for a shallow pool of keys.






How to Make Pancakes for a Dead Boy
For Frankie

First, crack the egg
into a sinkhole of grief.
Measure the ingredients,
then stir, until the lumps
no longer resemble bullets.

Try not to see him 
standing at your side
grinning at age six, 
front teeth missing,
pulling on your sleeve 
to whisper with a grin:
“Auntie, please add
 extra chocolate chips.”

Run the electric beaters.
until you can no longer hear
his voice as a toddler
or the snap and boom
of the first and last shot
he would ever fire.

Pour the batter 
onto the griddle,
and while the pancakes rise,
read his suicide note again.
Try to make sense of it
and get nowhere.

Cut the pancakes
into bite-sized pieces.
Sweeten the plate 
as you scream.

​

Joan Glass lives near New Haven, Connecticut. She lost her 37-year old sister and her 11-year old nephew to suicide in 2017, and is working on a collection of poems about those losses. Her poems have been published or are upcoming in The Fem, Rise Up Review, Black Napkin Press, Dying Dahlia Review, The Missing Slate, Vagabond City Lit, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, Literary Mama, Easy Street, and Right Hand Pointing, among others. Her poem “Bathing Scene” was featured on the Saturday Poetry Series: Poetry as it Ought to Be, and her poem “Cartouche,” was nominated for a Pushcart.

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