Jen BESEMER

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Two-Headed Child


These are my breasts. Bizarre lovely couple, two-headed child.

Emancipated, hardworking, somewhat tense, yes. But ultimately.
Under contract.

Only sometimes, neighbors whisper that they sleepwalk. Or drink.
You know.

Always cold-seared and leaf-bitten they come home. They paint
the tub grey with their regret.

I nurse them. Think of it.




The Well


There is a well here in my kitchen. Its single black eye
urges. Perfume and cosmetics surround it. I still don't
know what it means but I've come to value it.

Once despite his caution a friend fell in. I reached down to
him and he resented me for it. You see it was cultural
dissonance; his Bulgarian upbringing told him I'd trapped
him deliberately. Either that or I was trying to crack his
head with a bucket on a rope. The bucket on a rope.

Finally I left him to it. The well was dry anyway.
Yesterday I warned my new tenants about him but they
didn't seem to notice him, or the well.




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