Thanksgiving SOS

Grandpa’s vodka watered down,
the only potatoes served. Raised
eyebrows & cocked heads after
cocktail hour, guns with infinite
woundability. Signs passed
like cranberries over clicks
of Morse code cutlery.
Deep-fried turkey fireball
a flare signal for help. The kids
at the adult table a mere thirty-
plus three major tantrums.

Divorce Dirge

Send a note, A-sharp one to cut
flesh like cardstock.

Lay it under sheets of linen
& music.

Go to bars & see every face
like oboes, erotic

(clefts in chins & bedimpled cheeks).
Leave keys behind

with tips when tipsy like a reed
in a hailstorm

or when limbs surrender as guitar
strings from overuse.

Remove the band & prepare
an encore.

Free-To-Play

Turn it on. Select. Let it be
your choice. Your impulse inputs
manipulate the buttons. Do it.
Secure your eyes towards
wonderland. Admission is free.
Go. Wander within its confines.
Become better, harder, glorious.
Lose sleep and slip to further reaches
tangled in blips. You’re the controller,
the ruler. Hold yourself accountable…
accounts payable departments
unnecessary. Luxuriate in your new
skin. Flash plastic and enter your pin.
It’s only once… until next time.
“No cost to you” comes with a price
of $97.45 a virtual, never-ending steal.

Jennifer Ruth Jackson is a poet and fictionist with cerebral palsy. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Algebra of Owls, Apex Magazine, and more. Domestic Bodies, her literary poetry collection, came out in 2023 from Querencia Press. When she isn’t writing (or engaging in activism), you can find her crafting a variety of things or playing video games with her husband. Follow her on Bluesky or Instagram: @jenruthjackson.