by Jules Jacob

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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by Jules Jacob

I was gifted an eastern red columbine.
What more could I ask of a volunteer plant releasing
hydrogen cyanide than one with hermaphrodite
flowers pollinated by bumblebees & hummingbirds.

I was gifted a bird I’d never seen.
Russet-gold feathers, white-specked underbelly, eyes
to the hot pepper suet, claws the swaying cable line.
He sang his presence the previous evening.

I was gifted a quick-stepped intruder.
A devotee to chain link fences who softened
the fall of a latch. Brown thrasher, I cherish
your willingness to draw blood defending your own.

Brown thrasher, the Audubon Guide to North
American Birds says your numbers dwindle.
Describes a leaf-tossing mimic capable
of singing a thousand songs as common.

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Jules Jacob is a writer and child advocate living in Southwest Missouri whose work appears in journals and anthologies including SWWIM Every Day, Plume Anthology 8, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. She’s the author of The Glass Sponge (Finishing Line Press) and a recipient of the Virginia Center for the Creative Art’s fellowship in Auvillar, France. Learn more at julesjacob.com

by Jules Jacob

And she lets the river answer.
—Leonard Cohen

When I question the river, a chorus
of invisible frogs chants where, where, where.
When I let the river answer, she sets
a baritone soloist in the tall
still weeds beside me. There, there he insists,
familial home, gliding trails of kayaks,
siblings, father. Air, air, I plead. Waves slap
against the concrete cobblestone boat path;
wind breathes my will. Sings, I’m bending your way.
Swallows dip in September light, droplets
collect in my palm. Her hair shiny brown
and wet to her knees, my mother backcasts
and effortlessly cracks the whip before
introducing her nymph to the water.

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Jules Jacob is a contemporary poet who often writes about dichotomous conditions and relationships between humans and the natural world. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Plume Poetry 8, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Rust + Moth, Frogpond, and elsewhere. She’s the author of The Glass Sponge, with select poems featured at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Art’s Le Moulin à Nef in France. Visit julesjacob.com.

by Jules Jacob

Gardeners stay your eyes to flowers

hikers, trails     walkers, paths.

Let insects have my leaves,

yellow-rumped warblers my berries.

I cling to those temptation woos

closer     I will tendril fingers

brush rushinol between breasts

and lips, your oiled hands forever

touching. Pustules, inflammation

pain, red lines     teachers I gift

after you’re gone—what do you

give me?     A rise in carbon

an increase in size and potency,

my agents distributing greenhouse-

gassed seeds.     Burn me,

I’ll blow you a reminder.

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Julie “Jules” Jacob is a contemporary poet who often writes about dichotomousconditions and relationships among humans and the natural world. Her poems are recently featured or forthcoming in Plume Poetry, The Tishman Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Rust + Moth, Yes Poetry and elsewhere. She’s the author of The Glass Sponge, a semi-finalist in the New Women’s Voices Series (Finishing Line Press) and a resident of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Poetry Workshop. Visit julesjacob.com.

by Jules Jacob

Swaying in tree

pose     invoking ability

to quell shaking limbs,

I question years of narrow

rings     future possibilities

of wide ones in-between.

I breathe-in     realign

bend to chronic thirst

skip warrior III, exhaling

stronger children

in eucalyptus & western

red cedar     hiding

them in willow hair

before we drop

to corpse pose.

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Julie “Jules” Jacob is a contemporary poet who often writes about dichotomousconditions and relationships among humans and the natural world. Her poems are recently featured or forthcoming in Plume Poetry, The Tishman Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Rust + Moth, Yes Poetry and elsewhere. She’s the author of The Glass Sponge, a semi-finalist in the New Women’s Voices Series (Finishing Line Press) and a resident of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Poetry Workshop. Visit julesjacob.com.