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It’s hard to find feather roach clips.
There are no more square mirrors
of AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Ratt.
Spidora has legs made of Christmas lights.
I’ve stood in front of mirrors
to see my lingerie. I’ve fallen asleep waiting.
What did I look like to the girl he roped
into befriending me? Pre-web cams,
she didn’t see my reaction to threesome?
or the follow up do you know the difference
between love & in love?
What did my face look like
when I was having one of those orgasms
he claimed I had, but didn’t know I had?
I know what his face looked like when he grew tired.
I put my hand on top of his hand. He pulled back:
yeah, yeah, do yourself.
Even the best illusionists can’t make us believe
it’s a woman’s head on a spider body.
We only wonder how her body is being hidden.
Fun house mirrors & fornication force us
to see every thing from every angle.
I saw both our disappointments over the bed.
He untied my legs.

— Jennifer Jackson Berry

Jennifer Jackson Berry’s most recent chapbook When I Was a Girl is available online at www.sundresspublications.com/echaps.htm. Her poems have appeared in Harpur Palate, Connotation Press, Main Street Rag and Stone Highway Review, among others. She lives in Braddock Hills. Many writers featured in Chapter & Verse are guests of Prosody, produced by Jan Beatty and Ellen Wadey. Prosody airs every Saturday morning on 90.5 FM.