Poetry: Abriana Jetté

Abriana Jetté is a poet, essayist, and educator from Brooklyn, New York. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in the American Literary Review, Empirical Magazine, dirtCakes, and many other journals. Currently, she teaches for the College of Staten Island, Kingsborough Community College, and for the nonprofit organization Sponsors for Educational Opportunity.

 

THE DRIFT

Four o’clock in the not
yet evening and I am thinking
of fixing a drink. Sound of ice
against the bottom of the glass

and I wonder what Dad
was thinking. Some mornings
the white throated sparrow’s child
masters her mother’s song.

They sing. I listen, sip,
search for nests between leaves.
Their whistling stirs the breeze.
He said if you say you’re happy

you’re happy. Mom says I
have too much man in me,
meaning I’m too much
like him. And anyway, I fight it

or tell her in college everyone I knew
carried a water bottle filled with vodka
in their purse to class, say there is
nothing wrong with wine

before dinner. She worries. Watches.
Searches for anything she can find.
But there is nothing to worry over,
I’ve already told you about the ice.