Run It up the Flagpole and See | Jessie Janeshek

Deadstock pins.         Heartline/health

build out the collar

my body doesn’t change

but I am obsessed with keeping it going.

Girls throng around     after a murder

middy blouses     victory rolls

acting out plays on the big porch

its chipping blue paint.

She did a dead-on impression of Deanna Durbin

no longer colors or covers

a cat sleeping or a mermaid tail.

She did a dead-on of Deanna Durbin

she used to have her psychic predictions

down by the river          hourglass/cloverleaf

show her a card.

We feel lucky for a minute

when the weather slips

but what did we do to deserve this simulation?

Jessie Janeshek’s full-length collections are MADCAP (Stalking Horse Press, 2019), The Shaky Phase (Stalking Horse Press, 2017), and Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). Read more about these and her chapbooks at jessiejaneshek.net.