Poetry by Talya Jankovits

             Rob LeBer CC



When We Meet New People

When you talk past me
and ask him what he does
for a living while I juggle
babies, shifting weight 
to reach down and pick
up a fallen bootie -
I busy myself with
wiping yesterday’s cold
off my shoulder, 
try to hold my waistband
up as a hand pulls my skirt
downwards into a
ground I never feel
firmly planted inside, 
but only atop--
a loose bulb that 
will never grow
because feet trample
me with endless requests
for snacks. I am holding 
an infant, bending
over the back of a toilet seat,
wiping a bottom by the time
he finishes telling you how 
many years it takes to become
a board certified veterinary 
surgeon. We never mention
how long it took us to become
parents or earn my terminal
degree or how many years
it takes to write my novels
and how many rejections
I collect in my inbox while
my time is spent in a grocery 
store and in a carpool line
or beneath a wheezing toddler
whose flesh is so hot I sweat
naked with my clothes covered
in vomit in a pile next to us.

No one ever asks me what I do. 

​
​

Talya Jankovits’ work has appeared in a number of literary journals. Her micro piece, 'Bus Stop in Morning' was a winner of Beyond Words Magazine's 250-word Cold themed writing challenge. Her short story “Undone” in Lunch Ticket was nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her poem, A Woman of Valor, was featured in the 2019/2020 Eshet Hayil exhibit at Hebrew Union College Los Angeles. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and resides in Chicago with her husband and four daughters

---