May 2024

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Wordless Esteem

By Jennifer Ruth Jackson

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Wordless Esteem

By Jennifer Ruth Jackson

We are so brilliant, worlds lay drowned

and buried under our tongues. Oceans become

puddles. Tartness works our saliva over. We produce

(on demand) onions and eggplants for inspection.

Hold them to the bruising to match color,

to mush-rot worlds our silence helps dissolve.

We move our soundless mouths like backhoes,

pawing at the air as if to excavate our sins.

Too late. There is no one left to listen, now.

We are illiterate in lip-reading.

Jennifer Ruth Jackson is a poet and fictionist with cerebral palsy. She is the author of Domestic Bodies (Querencia Press, 2023). When she isn’t writing, you can find her making greeting cards, creating beaded jewelry, championing other disabled writers, or playing video games with her husband. Find her on Twitter: @jenruthjackson

Image description: A woman in a red-striped dress wearing a red necklace.

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