A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Lilith menstruates for the first time
try to make me
a sea creature
but i know i am
the sea. you are
strata beneath
me. i’m in my luteal
phase which doesn’t
mean anything
to you. i’ve never
feared water. truth is
we will all drown.
in night stations.
in alley ways. in bone-
dry courtrooms.
so what i was red-sea
exiled. so what
i was unmothered.
i’m talking sea
all the way down.
i’m talking moonlight
and algae and blood-
brown blooms. not
your matriarch. not
your demon. not
your mesopotamian
dust. i am the flood
and the floodgates,
my story a deluge/
cascade/torrent.
ready?
Jennifer Garfield
Jennifer Garfield’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including The Threepenny Review, Sugar House Review, Frontier Poetry, Passengers Journal, and West Trestle Review. She is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Literary Grant and Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing Fellowship. She lives and teaches in Massachusetts.
