Enfant Terrible
Juliette Jeffers
You feed me a piece of steak, it’s so
embarrassing. It takes me ten minutes
to chew. If you wanted to shut me up
you’ve done it.
I was in so much trouble
for running away at the mall. They called
the mall cop and made me wear
a little backpack with a leash.
I’m doing the thing where I walk
in front of a moving car and stare
directly into the windshield like
how dare you hit me. It’s worked
so far. Maybe they should put me back
on that leash. You ask me
what I’m thinking about, my least
favorite question. It’s a sign of weakness,
the chewy tendons of that steak were once
the chewy tendons of the animal. The calf’s
wet nose pressed to my palm. I’m four years old
wandering through the pasture, covered in cow shit.
From this moment forward
Juliette Jeffers
I’m trying to stop
calling myself a girl, everything imbued with
its currency, I want my brain to move like a slot machine.
I am not afraid,
we were drunk driving down the coast, screaming
into the same wet lawns. Before my face even had a shape,
I knew myself for your foil, I liquify. Trembling within the vessel,
the melted tequila soda doesn’t mind when knees hit the table,
doesn’t mind being drunk, knows the cycle of its birthright.
We arrive here, at this brazen smell of thawing earth.
If I asked, would you jump that fence?
I can become my own kind of animal.
Two calves pressing four knees
and fear, I am forgetting how it tasted,
I am relentless in my spring.
Juliette is a poet and writer living in NYC. Her writing can also be found in Interview Magazine and Delude Magazine. Recently, at a party, she told someone that her cause is “the truth.”