Two Poems: Jasmine Ledesma
Winner: Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry Selected by Katie Ford
The Sleazebag Speaks As the fentanyl melted in my mouth, Bonnie sang and stroked my hair with her hand. I didn’t know the song but her voice was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve heard many beautiful things. Angels in the traphouse. My foot was broken in three places. My ankle shattered like glass beneath the pressure of the train post. A doctor told me they were going to put a metal cage around my foot if the surgery wasn’t successful. I’d be unable to walk for weeks. But when I slipped out from beneath the black cradle of anesthesia, there was a cast on my foot instead. Hard like musgravite. I hardly felt the pain at all. But I could feel everything else. All of the names he called me as we raced down the street. Slut, wasteland, one-winged finch. How hot my face felt as I screamed back. How delirious the moonlight was through the windows as I died. It was not my first death. Earlier in April I was shot. But I was lucky enough that the bullet only grazed the crown of my skull. With all the grace of a figure skater’s blade. I have been saved so many times with nothing to show for it. Here with my same void. In these lame hands. Knocking on his door again and again. But I’m getting out. I dream of a large house with a staircase and carpet and shutters that tremble with cool wind.