Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem, every Thursday.
 

Wild Orca Family Chased Down by Jet-skiers Wanting Selfies

Huntington Beach, CA

 

Given money

& leisure, maybe

I’d reach

to touch that rubbery

Dalmatian dolphin,

that larger-than—

as I ride my Wake-Jumper,

cut killer ripples,

& shake off the foam

& the biologist

yelling from a slow craft.

Maybe I’d want

to show the world

my face

 

so near their six-foot fins—

just to “inspire”

my followers, my feed.

I wouldn’t be proving anything—

just sayin’: Nature

is a language

& I’m bilingual—I am

a “conservationist.”

Maybe I’d be

so wild

for that shot

I’d speak motor

& grip & chase a sweet pod

all the way home.

 

Jennifer Jean‘s poetry collections include VOZ and THE FOOL, as well as OBJECT LESSON which is about sex-trafficking and objectification in America. Her teaching resource book is OBJECT LESSON: a GUIDE TO WRITING POETRY. She’s received honors, residencies, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, DISQUIET/Dzanc Books, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Her Story Is collective, the Academy of American Poets, the Kolkata International Poetry Festival, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer’s poetry and co-translations have appeared in POETRY, Rattle, The Common, Waxwing, On the Seawall, DMQ, Salamander, Terrain, and elsewhere. And, she is the senior program manager of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program.

 

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx