Yellow Mama E zine

THE UNDERBELLY

 

by Jennifer Weiss

 

I have seen the underbelly:

The burnt sienna rust

of a magnolia leaf

beneath its waxen jade counterpart,

the cardinal’s scarlet breast,

as vivid and spectacular

as hemic rivulets coursing

along grout lines

of a cold tile floor.

Aslant, beneath the divider,

pink cotton candy-laced

electric white Keds,

descended from smooth,

peach-freckled calves,

circled, silent, automaton-like,

daubing and smearing

the spreading pool

with tissue clouds

dropped at intervals

from above.

The grounded white tufts

swelled, transformed

to crimson clumps.

Mute, I tiptoed

to the door, glanced back

at the candy cane swirl

radiating from under the stall

like a fair-spun paint design,

and fled, retching,

to my carrel in the stacks,

to my reading

of Bleak House.

 

 

        Jennifer Weiss grew up in rural New Jersey. Her poetry appears in the North Carolina Literary Review, Kakalak, Pinesong, Jackdaw Review, and Qu Literary Magazine. She was the winner of the 2022 NC State Poetry Contest. A lawyer and former state legislator, she volunteers in a Title I elementary school and is passionate about reading aloud to children.

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         Bernice Holtzman’s paintings and collages have appeared in shows at various venues in Manhattan, including the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26th St., and one other place she can’t remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received. She is the Assistant Art Director for Yellow Mama.