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poetry


SOUVENIR
 by
 Jenine Durland

I have studied the pattern of your skin where it overgrew the nail

wondering if your hands would ever close around my scars.


You brought me to you, folding my arms around

to keep everything out from between, and, still, I unwrapped.


Imagine if I’d saved all the lint I picked from your belly button,

a mason jar of blue fluff, a souvenir that I could just unscrew.



PHONE SEX
 by
 Jenine Durland

It’s amazing how long I’ll sit here,

staring at an empty sheet,

thinking there’s nothing I have to say that hasn’t been said,

then I’ll surprise even myself,

my mouth shaping words I will tell to no one,

except a man on the other end of so many things

that sometimes I wonder what it is we’re holding on to.



REAL
 by
 Jenine Durland

You are sweaty

and sticky

somewhere between

your stomach

and his side.

You cannot sleep

with his hand

where it is,

the sound

of his heart

too loud

under the muscle

of his upper arm.

Sleep

would be

so easy,

so utterly simple

if only you hadn’t

opened your eyes

to his shadowed

face, a strand of

sunbleached hair

across one of his

too-blue eyes,

closed in sleep.

You are thinking

of a shower

and how soft

your sheets

will feel

after the burn

of this sand.

You are memorizing

the curve

of his body

and the scent

of your own,

for morning,

when you

are all

that remains.

Jenine Durland earned her BA in English: Poetry Track from the Colorado College under the study of poets Jane Hilberry, Joan Stone, and Roger Mitchell. Her work has been published in the Leviathan, the Cipher, and by the Press at Colorado College. She makes her home at 10,000 feet in the San Juan Mountains, but will soon be trading her skis in for the subway with an upcoming move to Brooklyn.



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