Jennifer Jackson Berry

NO PARTNER BUT A WALL

i do smile        at parties at picnics
when something is funny        when something is sweet
over & over again        but when i'm in this other place

this place where teeth are bared in scream
i volley back & forth

no partner but a wall what is balled up bounces
back to me         & back to me

Jennifer Jackson Berry's first full length collection of poetry The Feeder is forthcoming from YesYes Books in late 2016. She is also the author of the chapbook When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications, 2014). Her poems have appeared most recently in journals such as The Paterson Literary Review, Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal, Toad, and Whiskey Island, as well as the anthology Political Punch: The Poetics of Identity (Sundress Publications, 2016). She is the Editor of Pittsburgh Poetry Review and an Assistant Editor for WomenArts Quarterly Journal. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a proud member of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshop