Jane Loechler

Winning Streak

A night's worth of rain at sunrise. I could drown

in a teacup under a shake of the oleander branch.

I only asked for water, but you bring me vaseline.

I dig deep, find the barter in me. That’s the spirit,

you say. You sleep while I'm left half undrunk.

I grab the keys to your unmarked car.

Fair trade.

Living Room                                                                                                                        

then comes the part just before I wake up

we are sitting

side by side on the sofa

and you are opening envelopes

we are watching television

a game show in the bonus round

when I realize

I’ve slid my hand flat under your ass

to place a part

of myself

between you

and the earth’s gravity

or maybe just to warm my hand as though

you were my husband

and I could be so familiar

with your body

or even mine

No Cover                                                                                                                              

It's what I do alone, drive to the North Side, where

the finest ingredients are used, where the sign means

to say GIRLS, but the L is missing, as though once

you get inside you will hear the voices of bears.

Where the tornado hit last year. I never bothered

to come see the uprooted trees,  overturned sidewalk,

those bright blue tarps tossed over the roofs. Sleeping

low income children, their mothers dancing for money.

GIR_S. The dream recurs in the gymnasium of my junior high.

Tell myself I am a star. Tell myself the aftermath in past tense.

As it turns out the choice was always one between

my finger and the rest my life. Pointing away from myself

inside the dark room, poking into the red glow across

the surface of a stop bath. Chemistry, repelled and rapt.

Call it a reaction of emergence. This is how we learn

what is not covered in health class, a boy’s erection

through layers of cloth, a living thing against my thigh.

We hover toward each new inkling, fruit in each other’s hands.

I mean it’s not like this was ever my idea, all the boys

on one side, all the girls on the other, lined up, unscathed.

CP

Jane Loechler is a poet and sculptor in St. Paul, Minnesota.  By day she is a counter of tax payers' beans.  None of these have turned out to be magic yet, so she is holding on to the cow for now.  She received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design and has poems published or forthcoming in Bat City Review, Elimae, PANK 8, Burntdistrict and Sugar House Review.  More at: wilcken.tumblr.com