Watch Thief

I’ve unplugged from dark matter…every breath is a protest thing…I still care about people.
Trying to fall asleep, I wonder
about the sincerity of those
who wear their spots on their clothes
and not their skins.
The view outside where the moon is a
soft milky dollop of butter behind
a 400-year-old oak tree.
I am wearing a nightshirt of milky stars
and the sky fills up with
white feathers floating down.
The wine bottle on the table is not as full
as the flickering candlelight…I focus on the wine stain …spreading…on the pristine
tablecloth…I’m changed with each gulp.
After the morning sunrise, I wonder
will we instead go south and go walking
through the swamp forests full of
ghost orchids? Trying to find the words…to explain how I care…since you asked me
by rustling leaves of the cottonwood trees,
then you asked for my time and then
my feelings flicker as I glance at my watch
in the wine glass’ reflection.
There will be a wreath of flowers in my hair…a summer’s joker’s crown…I never look at
myself, glancing at my watch
in the glass’s reflection I don’t want
to be misinterpreted, neither understood,
and I write all my words in rooms
with yellow walls and sky-blue ceilings.

Need more poetry? We’ve got an abundance of beautiful selections at the MockingOwl Roost!

• Birth of a Dream – Narrative Poetry
• Nothing More Than a Lesson – Poetry Reading
• To Be Seen – a Poem
• Forgotten Pebbles – Poetry
• The Raven – a Poem
• Nature’s Whispers of Colours – A Poem
• Last Words/Elizabeth – A Poetry Reading of Loss

Jennifer Lemming

+ postsBio

Jennifer Lemming ’s blog about living in North Dakota, USA, A Page on the Plains, is archived on the Hudson Valley Writers Guild site. She won Grand Prize in the Dancing Poetry Contest in 2019. Her poems and short fiction have been published in online and print journals. Her latest chapbook, Star Slough, was published by Dark Heart Press, March 2019. In 2023, North Dakota Humanities published her poem, “BisBack Badlands”. She lives in Bismarck, North Dakota where she hands out her extra copies of the Poetry Magazine, usually in tattoo parlors & beauty salons in Mandan and Bismarck North Dakota, respectively.

Explore Jennifer’s blog, or follow her on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.

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