Jennifer Bradpiece

July 2020

Jennifer Bradpiece was born and raised in the multifaceted muse, Los Angeles, where she still resides. She loves to collaborate with multi-media artists on projects. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in various anthologies, journals, and online zines, including Redactions, The Common Ground Review, and The Bacopa Literary Review. 

Lullaby for Miss America      

There she is

wrapped in red like waxed cheese.

She has been sculpted and sanded by 

the balding god-head of moguls.

Someone else’s sex patented 

and stamped with approval, but wait…

The doll has shifted in her packaging,

has wandered out after dark as if she were anatomically correct,

has stabbed at subversion, 

only transgressing the god who packaged her,

a brand name pasteurized.

In the end, 

they will not disown her.

They will strip her down to her baby-white flesh 

and fasten her up to their own glossy page.

A little Mary, reclaimed by commerce,

by the men who open and shut the Earth with their eyes.

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Lullaby for My Nephew

When you came along,

I no longer recognized myself.

You rearranged all of our faces:

dreams, desires, fears, strung on

yet severed at the cord.

The monsters aren’t in your closet

or under your bed.

But don’t turn on the TV, stand 

too close to the microwave, ever get 

your lover’s name tattooed across your chest.

You were born bearing gifts:

a calm that could tame a tsunami,

a laugh that tickles the sun,

an ageless aura of Zen.

When your eyes light, a fairy smiles,

a gnome plays the grass flute,

a lion settles in a glen.

We will disappoint you. Forgive us.

If we are each born into this world

owing some debt, know

that you have already paid

with interest. 

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