JADE KLEINER

After Mary Oliver’s “The Sea”

moment by
    moment my
        body covets the future and yearns for
           the coming parts of herself
eyes, hips
   finalized as clay in
        the kiln- my skin
            wants to melt but stay
one person, I swear I know
     just what a fresh-red spark
         igniting
            this kindling of mine would
feel like!
      joy! Breathing
          in my destination,
              in an emberbody
of burns and beginnings,
     what a tide
         of lightning pulses
              through my blue veins! how
I long to march down the charred road
     home, the seared
         journey of self,
            to burn,
to just
     feel again that little swell
         of reckless hope
            bursting up
from the cold-dead ribs of a ghost’s body,
      sprouting
          like sunflowers on an
              ashen seedbed, that
rebirthing fire, that
         beckoning
           future and
             voyage of the self

Jade Kleiner is rooted in New England. Among other places, her poetry can be found in Trampoline and manywor(I)ds, her haiku in Cold Moon Journal, and her fiction in Bright Flash Literary Review. She is transgender and is currently revising her utopian novella, Ship of Plenty. She has practiced in the Plum Village Tradition since 2020.