When hunger and thirst are rulers
greater than any gods, we sew
nettles into imaginary dough, veto
the unsettled tears of pioneers.
We are a brief dream the ocean
once had. A blip of phosphorescence.
Factory-made luminescence
in the maw of a wave’s promotion.
There is nothing more, nothing more,
once we reach the horizon.
We are a stitch in the incision
as the unobtainable orange sours.
Jen Karetnick is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, 2016), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize, and four poetry chapbooks. The winner of the 2017 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the 2016 Romeo Lemay Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, she has had work appear recently in Amuse-Bouche/Lunch Ticket, Crab Orchard Review, Cutthroat, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Missouri Review, Negative Capability, Prime Number Magazine, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She is co-editor of the daily online literary journal, SWWIM Every Day (@SWWIMmiami). Jen received an M.F.A. in poetry from University of California, Irvine, and an M.F.A. in fiction from University of Miami. Find her on Twitter @Kavetchnik, Facebook @Kavetchnik and @JenKaretnick, and Instagram @JenKaretnick.