about the author

Russell Jaffe teaches English at Kirkwood Community College and creates installation art in Iowa City, IA, USA. He holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago and his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Horse Less Review, Shampoo, elimae, La Petite Zine, and others. His chapbook G(*)D is forthcoming from Pudding House Press and he is the founder/editor of O Sweet Flowery Roses, a journal of experimental and emerging poetry.


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Skulls

Russell Jaffe



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Empty, they are often something borrowed.
Too afraid to call winter their favorite season
but too cowardly to rush like high winds

over landscapes that fold like paper.
These transparent apparatuses could
be a few things:

They could reflect the stars back into your face,
denying you what holds your thoughts behind
holes that may fit skeleton keys or Midwest hail.

But they could also be see-through windows
to the soul. Maybe they’re those, but no skull of mine
shoulders that burden that I drink through, eat through, carry.





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