July 2016
 J.C. Elkin
 janecelkin@yahoo.com
I am an optimist, linguist, and singer with a mammoth memory for minutiae. My collection World Class: Poems Inspired by the ESL Classroom (Apprentice House 2014) is based on my experiences teaching English to adult immigrants at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland. Other poetry and prose drawing on spirituality, feminism, travel, and childhood appear domestically and abroad in such journals as The Delmarva Review, Kestrel, Kansas City Voices, and Angle. www.jcelkin.net ​

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A beautiful day
like a cartoon Band-Aid
makes the wounded smile. 


 
(                      )
slitty-eyed stingray
with your water wings and whip
like me, you hide and watch
and flee in silent flight
before you’ll fight.
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Author's Note: "The Wait for You" recalls the birth of my first grandchild, 4 years ago in July.

​The Wait for You

 
Long, heavy and hushed
Fraught with unspoken concerns
Then you were in our arms
 
The weight of you
Long, heavy and hushed
But for sweet baby snores     

​

Watching Jimi at Monterey
 
Hendrix mounted his Fender
onstage a gleaming, virgin
Wild Thing.
 
Coaxing, tickling, yanking
her strings, he humped her
in booty-tight velvet
thrusting her toward the mob
as she wailed in electric climax.
 
And when he was through
he sprayed her with Zippo
and set her afire so no one
else could ever have her
again.
 
And all the girls burned
for him.
"Slitty Eyed Stingray" was first published in Soul Lit.
"Watching Jimi at Monterey" was first published in Annapolis Underground.
   ©2016  J.C. Elkin