The problem with memory is you remember.
JSA Lowe | Poetry
What if it’s a relief not to speak anymore? It’s better to not,
then everyone concerned can go on about their business, days
ticking past, simple petals dried under a desiccating sun. I don’t
know what I don’t know, I barely know what I do. A metal ring
closes around a child’s throat. I stood up to recite the quatrains,
bent double to pray aloud in tongues. Nothing meant anything
and I had to hide that, when you are bookish but also stupid.
She’s a poxy girl, so fallible. She wanted to be the best one. Now
teenaged scars open back up, unknitting anile skin: criss-cross.
JSA Lowe’s most recent book of poetry Internet Girls was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. Previously, Cherry-emily was printed by Dancing Girl Press (2015), and DOE by Particle Series Books (2012). Her poems have appeared in such journals as AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Chicago Review, DIAGRAM, GASHER, Harvard Review, Hobart, Laurel Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, Salamander, Sinister Wisdom, Southeast Review, Superstition Review, and Versal, and her lyric essays in Denver Quarterly and The Rupture. She is an adjunct professor in literature and film at the University of Houston Clear Lake, and she lives on Galveston Island.