Poem by Jessica Jacobs

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TAKING A TURN AT THE WRECK-A-WRECK 

My poems and I have behaved
                too long. So how good it is 
         to write the feel of bending 
my palms to the strong cool shaft,
               of pressing my fingers round its grain

and hefting the hammer—windows’
               shatter sweet and sharp as 
        sugared ice from the bottom 
of a stranger’s glass. Again and 
               then collapse of the passenger

door, the trunk. My destruction 
              coked into each 
        hit until I am on
the roof, using my body
              like a battering man, abandoning

the hammer to crush with 
             my hands, which is
       to say I want to crush you
to me until you beg
            forgiveness for all the pain 

you have not caused me. 
            The kind that causes love
       to walk home at dawn 
in someone else’s shoes
            and little else on, too high 

on last night to even see
           her totaled car. The kind
     where good behavior
is measured
            by how bad you are. 

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