Mark Jackley
Grace
When I use the word
I'm not thinking of the way
you discreetly daub your rose-petal lips
with a linen napkin
in your slender fingers
but how the watermelon,
resembling a misshapen
planet fallen from
the heavens meets the knife,
splits into a dozen
grins and spills its seeds
like black stars.
Bio
Mark Jackley is the author of four chapbooks and a full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait (Plain View Press). He lives in Sterling, VA.