by Jennifer Markert

Jennifer Markert, *Five Summers Later,* digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of the author.

Lost in Midtown

Jennifer Markert | AUG 2024 | Issue 36

I.

Made in India, bought in Madrid. A two-euro jumpsuit
worn in Andalusia, stained on 7th Avenue,
New York, New York.

And what happened in Spain ends before it begins:

thin floral cotton, breezy in the August sun
that deja vu, that out-of-body cruelty
the subdued, wet ruin of it all.

In transit, in tears, in the eternity
of an eight-minute stumble–
the city deifies the life we mistake.

II.

At 4:45,
a girl walks into a clinic, crying.
Saturn returns restless to this old cliche,
rings still and glistening, grace left in space.

A woman hangs framed, glamorous in onyx
painted eyes averted, skin like the moon.

What’s black and white with red all over?
What’s red anywhere if no one says its name?

III.

Somewhere in Georgia,
a piece of the present, past and future
is extinguished from a 700-mile distance.

I received flowers days earlier:
a perfumed prophecy cloaked in purple.

Hours unravel, take spontaneous leave
but the doctors don’t equivocate.

Sometimes, what’s ours is no one’s
the bloom too early, the boy too late.

IV.

Roses, DOA in a vase and deader by the day.
I place them in a corner where shadows swear
to mask the decay.

Brooklyn will swallow their remnants too.

Philadelphia, Tribeca, Grenada

I invoke the names of the places I’ve been
because I cannot name what I’ve failed to create.

V.

As sirens on Ocean Parkway wail for real ghosts,
I wonder about things that crawl
And when Eve’s curse turned darker unfulfilled.

Made in Madrid, lost in Midtown.

Logically, it’s a reset: red turns to pink, then to white
hormones fade to zero, a single line, to “no.”

Psychologically, “yes” was the lighthouse
and “maybe” was the wreckage.

VI.

The jumpsuit washed up spotless
but clothes betray no nightmares
or afternoon carnage.

They say it could be worse:
bigger smears on silk or satin
later heartbreaks over heartbeats we heard.
Messier breakdowns in lonelier towns,
masses extracted or attended in black.

But as Capricorn bled, so did Leo.

I cleave to the notion of letting it go
until the next childish leap toward heaven.

We’ll make it, but how far?

Jennifer Markert is a writer, mother, and marketing professional currently living in Pennsylvania. A lifelong storyteller, she studied creative writing at Temple University and has been quietly penning poems and essays ever since while building her career and family. Her most recent passion project is a book-length memoir of a high-risk pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.