Issue > Poetry

Jacqueline Hughes Simon

Jacqueline Hughes Simon is a poet living in Berkeley, California. Her poems have appeared in Cal Literary Arts Magazine, Blanket Stories, Poecology and Squaw Valley Review.

When Everything I See Needs a New Name / the World Must Name Itself

When
~

the clouds look
like something that would
be wrong with your lungs,
I forget where my heart
is, the color of his nipples,
& how to say "I know" in French.
I write a poem about
forgiveness and lose it.

~

I'm not who I seem—
if I seem like someone
who should watch your children
or cut your hair.

~

I never see the green
he spoke of, taste
its mossy pebbles or
peppery smell. Have we stopped
finding new fruit?
What waits to be gleaned,
soaked and eaten?