Lately, I’ve been feeling like Jesus’s sister. 
Who knew that Jesus even had a sister?
In kindergarten, I learned “infant” was a special name for a baby. 
I was so sad to have been born 
just a baby. I should start asking for the things I want. 
After I deliver the next bag of food to a customer I’ll say, 
“You realize you forgot to tip, right?” 
My car smells like fried chicken.
This is what it’s like to be the vehicle for someone else’s desires. 

I played volleyball for a season. My serves never made it over the net. 
I practiced the action of driving the ball while the team moved on
to other drills. Even now, I find myself mid-motion, 
the heel of my wrist raised to strike 
rubber from the air. Nothing comes down, 
nothing gets over the net.

I thought my big Waiting would be done by now–
the rest of my life would be     action action   action.
I want the same things that Eleanor Roosevelt did — hot nasty speed 
and also a little vegetable garden on the White House lawn.
I want everyone to know how fast and loose I live — 
everyone except my mother. The other night I thought, 
God it’s been a tough summer.
Then realized, 
it’s been December.

Published November 24, 2024

Makayla Gay hails from Southeastern Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Tupelo Quarterly, and Adroit Journal (forthcoming). Her chapbook, Hackles, is out April 2025 with Girl Noise Press.

Michelle Jezierski’s (b. Berlin, 1981; lives and works in Berlin) paintings unfurl simultaneous spaces that are awash in light. Contrasts between bright and dark and muted as well as lucent hues engender a singular atmosphere characterized by depth and dynamism. The artist is as invested in the perception of these constructed spaces as in the capaciousness of natural landscapes. In her paintings, luminous colors and geometric disturbances achieve shifting balances between the extremes of order and chaos, light and shadow, interior and exterior, structure and flux.

Michelle Jezierski studied with Tony Cragg at the Berlin University of Arts and graduated from Valérie Favre’s class in 2008. She also received a fellowship for a semester abroad at Cooper Union, New York, where she studied with Amy Sillman.