Jessica Pierce​
​

Lights Click On

Stink from cigars
and leftover whipping cream.
Hands that grab at hips in blue dresses
and bring them under the desk.
No one knocks at the door.
They know better. They leave
the newspaper on the mat.
They’ll come back with fresh flowers later.
Lights click on.
Faces covered.
Where are the blue dresses now?
Send everyone home,
cold and dumb.
--
Jessica E. Pierce's debut collection, Consider the Body, Winged, was published by First Matter Press. Winner of the 24th Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from CALYX, you can find her poems in Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review, Euphony, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the New Ohio Review’s NORward Prize, Nimrod's Pablo Neruda Prize, and the MVICW Poetry Contest for which she received a Poet Fellowship.