Jessica Coles

by Jessica Coles

We cannot read the darkness. We cannot read it. It is a form of madness, albeit a common one, that we try.
– “130” Bluets, Maggie Nelson

We crouch in a corner of light,
cannot lift arms into shadow. We attempt to
read answers with contrast so high that
the bright blots out
darkness, a dance of vision:

We stared at the sun even though he said you
cannot look directly into and there’s no future to be
read in that kind of fire, but when we looked,
it held a fortune of aurora.

It predicted questions: What
is language when we look at the sky?
A flock of swallows lacing depths of blue with a new
form of divination. This pattern
of belief predicts possibility not
madness; this faith in shadow-weaving,
albeit lacking vocabulary, opens
a fresh birth of light, so
common that we don’t perceive the difference:
one transmutes the other so
that, unpredictably, our vision wavers while
we enlighten ourselves with dim incantations.

Try again. These shimmers chant psalms of darkness.

Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet from Edmonton (Treaty 6 territory), where she lives with her family, a tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet, and a tarantula named Miss Dashwood. She takes inspiration from linguistics, music, folklore, science, and nature. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, Full Mood Mag, atmospheric quarterly, Stone Circle Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Ghost City Review, and elsewhere. Her two self-published chapbooks are available through Prairie Vixen Press. Find her on Bluesky: @prairievixen.bsky.social

by Jessica Coles

I drop love letters into the river
to dissolve ink

minerals surrender to water for the joy
of a journey they can leave any time

water surrenders to the subtle tilt of earth
rolls, ripples, riffles dictated by ground travelled

placid winding across the prairies: a sly secret
of curvature that tips love under the ocean

under the sun, water surrenders to the atmosphere
my meditation app compares the sky to a smile

that compares my fixations to clouds that compare
my thoughts to love: water converted and puffed

open for anyone to imagine into horses or ducks or
angel wings. My love amasses drop by drop and surrenders

to the thirst of foxtail barley growing
between the cracks in an unused parking lot

edging an inky river

Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet and editor from Edmonton, Alberta, A (Treaty 6), where she lives with her family and a judgmental tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, Crow Name, Capsule Stories, Full Mood Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, EcoTheo Review, and You are a Flower Growing off the Side of a Cliff. Her chapbook, unless you’re willing to evaporate, is available through Prairie Vixen Press. You can find Jessica on Twitter @milkcratejess.