JORY MICKELSON
Irises
They were all that mattered
that summer I lived
on 3rd—Russ, my neighbor
made every conversation
dazzle with what
years later, I’d know
was loneliness—rehearsal
of chatter until
it blooms—Then
I knew luxury
to be happiness—
what gave me joy
was true & how
I forgot it for years—
such expensive absence
Little voice singing O
let me be / O let me
be true / O let me
be along the low
chainlink fence
where we drank
champagne before the parade
my tight purple
shorts, ready to strut
to be seen & cruise
behind the shyness
of sunglasses O
bravado of my insecurity
O burgeon / O floweret
How I said each week
I never liked
leisure, I liked doing
nothing, those green
afternoons & bruisedark
nights the stereo sighing: O
efflorescence / O cluster
my little blotsma of spunk
that season our happy faces
filling the streets
with hunger, with openness
summer offering us
its gold throat
Jory Mickelson is a trans writer whose first book, WILDERNESS//KINGDOM, is the inaugural winner of the Evergreen Award Tour from Floating Bridge Press and winner of the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Poetry. Their publications include Court Green, DIAGRAM, Jubilat, Terrain.org, and The Rumpus. They are the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and were awarded fellowships from the Lambda Literary Foundation, Winter Tangerine, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. They are a 2022 Jack Straw Writer in Seattle, Washington. You can learn more about their work at: www.jorymickelson.com
