Jana-Lee Germaine

Poetry

Jana-Lee Germaine’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review, The Carolina Quarterly, december, The Potomac Review, and elsewhere. Bellevue Literary Review featured her poem “Eating Disorder” in their “Off the Page” reading series in New York City. She is a recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. She earned an MFA from Emerson College and is a Senior Poetry Reader for Ploughshares. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and four children.

Oklahoma, Blackbirds

5 a.m., south of Vinita, the red-gold sun an arched eyebrow on the face of the horizon. I was leaving Chicago, leaving my husband, already far from the paring knife winged across my skin, from hands that clamped my jaw and returned hours later with a dozen yellow roses. His voice trailed my little truck like litter on the highway, but I was hell-bent for cactus forests and a desert to be lost in. As I drove, a hinge of sky swung open, the dark road lifted, and birds with scarlet-flashed feathers unfurled toward heaven. Hundreds swirled above my truck. Soon they would scatter across the fields and fence posts, leaving me still pointed south, with only the ghost of sun on the road. Yet for a minute, I was one who traveled with a canopy of birds.

“ I suffered domestic violence in my first marriage. With the help of family and friends I was eventually able to escape. When I left, I drove to a place in Arizona where I knew my ex-husband would never be able to find me. On that trip, I had an amazing experience with blackbirds early one morning, which eventually became this poem. It was an incredible moment of abundance and wonder in the midst of the darkest place I had ever been. This poem is part of my manuscript Learning Curve, which explores my escape from domestic violence, the long road to healing, and the way the fears I’ve carried affected my eventual journey into a second marriage and motherhood. ”

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