
Jena Ball
Jena is a multimedia communication specialist, virtual world evangelist, and passionate advocate for kids. She is currently working on a global initiative in support of Ukraine, and she writes poetry when no other words will do.

I.
I don’t know you - not really,
though the clever names of canines
you’ve loved and lost
caper around you like calling cards
and the authors who taught you
how to rip the human condition to shreds
with scathing humor and insight
have been my teachers too.
II.
I don’t know you,
but you wrote your way into my days
with audacious advice and words you’d reclaimed or remade
from the polite-society-police: dick pics, tricky dicks, dickweeds,
boffing, bouncing, banging,
up-righters, usable uprighters, and the right to do
just about anything related to sex
as long as it was FUN and no one was harmed in the process.
III.
Because of your words
I have giggled, snorted, hiccupped,
cackled, chortled, guffawed,
peed my pants
(on more than one occasion),
and scared my cats half to death.
It’s all your fault,
and I love you for it.
IV.
I don’t know you, not the day-to-day,
get up, wash your face, feed the dog, and wrestle with emails you,
but any woman who makes space in her heart and home
for black widows, mice, and poems,
who consumes mustard sandwiches,
dares to wear pink and peacock-blue wigs,
and takes road trips with Lewis Carroll in a Prius named Miss Bingley
is all right by me and receives automatic Soul Sister status.
V.
And so Sister mine, it’s time for me to feed you lines
about girding your loins,
poking testicles,
and blowing the orange toupee away,
but all I can think to say
are words from the song I wish I could play
as you march into that courtroom:
”I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be,
this is me.”
There’s an army of women walking with you Auntie E.
March on!
Copyright 2021 by Jena Ball. All Rights Reserved.
Inside Out
Inside looking out
the footsore dancers prance and preen,
pivoting on heels of glass
along lines of lessons
they’ve forgotten they learned
before they chose to dance.
Inside looking out
I watch,
cup my hands
around the steady flame of my existence,
and remember a breath of laughter,
sultry sweet and humming,
behind your words.
Inside looking out,
I touch the tender purple-blue edges
of our collision
and marvel at your devotion
to the intricate steps
seducing you from the still point
of your own soft-spoken truth. - Jena Ball
- Jena