Two Poems by J. MacBain-Stephens

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Monitor Monitor
 
  
The shift key, a trickster
the em dash, a tea drinker
 
The ENTER square, too open all night
 
Keys f5 and f6: obtuse but
the backspace: loyal.
 
The plus/minus twins grade school bullies
The colon a dirty joke
 
the page ups and downs, so 1995
 
the exclamation point: such a broet, the count-down to my low battery life.
 
Warnings blink from green,
to yellow, to Go Home
 
and get your power cord. While you are there,
 
grab a coupon for Travelocity, a spark of life.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, his future tense erased
For George Floyd
 
lungs fill to five counts
there is only now
and now
 
no ninth minute
 
brush your synapse dust off
 
a heart pumps ether
this violent blue recipe
hovers above the ground
 
there is no rise above it
 
graph a course to the clouds
or that mountain
torsos burst at whatever degrees
on the streets, behind masks
 
Flesh is not a shield
 
isosceles angles of gear
and madman tweets dime sized eyes
 
don’t overthink it
it’s rage pure and simple
 
cradle your midsection in reserve
a sun and hope salesman, too young
to die this way, evaporates
 
“open your eyes."

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 J. MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in Iowa where she likes to rock climb. She is the author of four full length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Her chapbook “Teeth Have a Hardness Scale of 5,” is forthcoming from Sputnik and Fizzle Press. Recent work can be seen at or is forthcoming from The Pinch, Cleaver, Yalobusha Review, Zone 3, and Grist. She also hosts an indie reading series sponsored by the non-profit organization Iowa City Poetry called Today You Are Perfect. Find her online at http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/