The Garden of Eden 

Jenna Haines

Powder blue sheets hang next to men’s dress shirts and ride up lace panties,

Animated in the wind on a half-assed, makeshift clothesline,

A smattering of blues so satirical, almost… 

Dichotomous it seems – to be inanimate and yet so lively.

Powder blue against a dehydrated terrace garden,

Dead and gone, withered from committal neglect,

The same absentmindedness that finds molded strawberries

In the bottoms of refrigerator drawers, 

Behind half-eaten avocados and unopened bags of baby carrots

And only when the dance times its cadence just right,

When the clothesline sways, and the pinnings lift all at once,

Can you see the man’s bare cheeks beyond the window panes,

As he sows a more fruitful garden,

Planting himself like the peach’s pit,

Hard and small and epicentric to the syrupy fruit,

Behind a pretend curtain of a failing clothesline.

Dawn

Jenna Haines

We were wandering like Pan’s Lost Boys through the streets when the sky began to lighten, long gossamer fingers reaching out to touch the tops of tall buildings, where rich men slept with their one-time women in penthouses we would never afford. Maybe I overshared in the sky bridge, or maybe before we sat in the Marriott's vacant parking garage, before the man in the neon yellow vest with the badge told us we couldn’t be there, but this was a lucrative attempt to feel—hanging our heads out of tall windows and shouting nothings into the empty sky, while the wind whipped our hair – just to feel free and boundless against the narrative of our inhibitions. The rain came and went, a midnight shower that would be unbeknownst to all that rested in their day-old sheets. The homeless packed up their temporary homes and navigated towards their daytime territory, singing in an off-key language that only they knew, occasionally yelling at the blankness in front of them for the odd plight that left them like this. Here we sat, against cold marble, witnessing the night move slowly, and quietly, while our bladders burst from hours of neglect. Thinking ourselves out of our synchronized shivers and willing ourselves to stay to escape the nostalgia that would follow, the night departed from day and so concluded the preface of the unfolding octavo.

Solomon’s Ballad

Jenna Haines

Behold the grudges of the weary,

Not dead, but drowning,

Meek and mild,

Floating in froth of that which is seething.

Coconut, not emasculated.

Gentle, and unavailable 

Whispers through trumpet blares

Bleeting like the Billy.

And I, I who sacrificed--

The Martyr. 

Disassembled pride hanging from sacred nails

Ravaged by The Beast,

God Willing!

She and He who will rise 

Liven in the sweat of his own,

For he who cherishes the grudge,

Cannot drown in his wishes!