Jess Parker

I click on an advertisement for a women’s rewilding
retreat and imagine heaps of eucalyptus, too much sea salt.

We bathe in it, and I mean bathe—no water, just endless dunes
of pink salt with arms and curly heads speckling the horizon

like far away dust storms. Some women sleep outside or at least
howl so long at the moon you’d think they swallowed a star,

caught a comet in their throats and were trying to yodel it out—
a cosmic gargling of sorts, a rebecoming one with the night

sky and such… of course, one woman falls in love with
Saturn, or perhaps takes to ogling his rings so that she’s

convinced each rotation is a furtive wink—every particle
distinct in its proof of reciprocity. I lean so close to the screen

that my breath is akin to a pixel, fogging a few together like two
clouds merging in agreement to rain. Somewhere seemingly off

planet, a child cries. Perhaps he is mine, having woken from a nap
early and fallen swiftly into wanting… before I turn back to the day,

I hug a rounded spoon of course, pink salt to my tongue, double
click to save the page.

Jess L Parker is a poet and strategist from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Jess lives in Fitchburg, WI with her husband and two-year-old son. Her debut poetry collection, Star Things, won the 2020 Dynamo Verlag Book Prize. Jess’ poems have appeared in Bramble, Kosmos Quarterly, Blue Heron Review, and elsewhere. Jess holds a B.A. of English and Spanish from Northern Michigan University, an M.A. of Spanish Literature from UW-Madison, and an MBA.