Love Poem: Jilly Laughs and I Cry
Jennifer Brooks Avatar
Written by: Jennifer Brooks

Jilly Laughs and I Cry

I. 
Jilly's laugh is somewhere between 
a hiccup and a sigh 
teeth shimmering 
little porcelain cups 
like the ones 
I used in 
Victorian doll houses 
when I was five 
perfectly glazed and rounded. 

II. 
Her 
late arrival 
like a Picaso painting 
brightly colored 
flecks of roses and blues 
all feet and limbs 
flailing 
simultaneously 
in proportion to her belly. 

III. 
Yesterday 
she flew 
over a crack in the sidewalk. 
We had been eating 
wild strawberries, 
her fingers were dyed with them 
and her blood, 
it fell to the sidewalk 
in perfect red rain drops. 

I think 
my heart stumbled 
in it's puddle.