Spring Break
I was in Cadiz once, kicking around
with some Navy guys, I didn’t kick up my
legs enough, I drank too much
Vermouth, I wished I was pretty. At
a bar overlooking the Atlantic,
a man said he would like to eat me like
a little fish, chomping the air with his
hands. Does that mean I am pretty?
But here’s the real meat of it:
it was the first time I ever tasted
a sun-ripened tomato,
And I remember thinking: holy shit!
That’s a tomato!
And that turned the ocean upside down
and I could have been a fish, I could
have been anything, even p-r-e-t-t-y
because I was in it, I was really living,
and my looks didn’t matter,
because you see,
the real thing is out there,
chomping away,
if you’re lucky enough to stumble
upon it randomly.
Kerry
I like that we both got our hair done
that day, and after / you lifted my hair
off of my shoulders, with a mouth
full of bees:
I chase everything.
I don’t
want to miss it.
Jocelyn Ulevicus is an American artist, writer, and poet with work either forthcoming or published in magazines such as SWWIM Every Day, The Free State Review, Humana Obscura & elsewhere. Ulevicus is a Best Poets 2022 nominee and a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. She is currently in Amsterdam, finalizing her first collection of poems.