Jessalyn Wakefield

SHELL & ANIMAL


come on brother show me the love
you can tell me where i come from

& the old snow on the ground, & wearing sandals, as if they could be snow shoes-
as if, the first battle of manassas. as if, chickamauga.

& holding eight mm film up to my window, found on the sidewalk years ago, sex & lydia it says,
& i hold a second snippet over the first, seven inches of tiny fireworks. & my memory has become something like this.

last night before sleep, an image of myself holding a large sand colored shell to my ear, spiked & rough on the surface, pink and feather soft inside. and my half-dream-self hearing my true heartbeat inside the shell, not the echo of the ocean inside my heart. & this morning, marina calling my dream name across the screen.

& i told his best friend my terrible female secrets, he standing in richmond virginia, in a cold lawn full of drunk men falling into grass,
& i standing beside a window framing a tree dripping japanese magnolia, the moon leaking through the skylight.
& i thought i am so fucking dramatic look at where i am standing.
of course i cried.

& a late night tea party, we all wore aprons, we have five tea pots.
the house is filled with flowers, silver. this house is a doll's house. this house is yellow.

drape ribbons over the antlers of the deer skull hanging above my bed.
everything in its place.

Jessalyn Wakefield lives on couches across Northern California. She is a letterpress printmaker and book artist.