After My Car Drowns in the Driveway During a 20-Inch Rainstorm,
seat cushions soaked as if run through a washing machine,
trunk sealed like a woman’s mouth, radio absent
of volume, witchy speakers crackling like crumpled tin foil,
the insurance company totals it, citing corrosion, citing
saltwater invasion, scheduling it for demolition, adding to
the climate change we aren’t supposed to reference. My husband
retrieves the license plate, the single item I’m allowed to keep,
to attach to a new vehicle I don’t want, and snaps one last photo
of the bumper stickers from the kids’ schools, now that they’ve moved
on. I sit shiva again for my father-in-law, who loved to help me
shop for cars, who put his arm around me when we bought this
little two-seater, anticipating these heart-opened days, who said Mazel tov,
girlie, you deserve it, as he always did. And I think about how this time,
all that I will hear will be sign here, and sign here, and initial here,
and here.
trunk sealed like a woman’s mouth, radio absent
of volume, witchy speakers crackling like crumpled tin foil,
the insurance company totals it, citing corrosion, citing
saltwater invasion, scheduling it for demolition, adding to
the climate change we aren’t supposed to reference. My husband
retrieves the license plate, the single item I’m allowed to keep,
to attach to a new vehicle I don’t want, and snaps one last photo
of the bumper stickers from the kids’ schools, now that they’ve moved
on. I sit shiva again for my father-in-law, who loved to help me
shop for cars, who put his arm around me when we bought this
little two-seater, anticipating these heart-opened days, who said Mazel tov,
girlie, you deserve it, as he always did. And I think about how this time,
all that I will hear will be sign here, and sign here, and initial here,
and here.
Spring 2026
A National Poetry Series finalist, Jen Karetnick is the author of 13 collections of poetry, including Inheritance with a High Error Rate (January 2024), winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Book Award and semi-finalist for the PSV 2025 North American Book Awards. Forthcoming books include What Forges Us Steel: The Judge Judy Poems (Alternating Current Press, 2025); Domiciliary (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2026); and Organ Language (Lit Fox Books, 2026). The co-founder and managing editor of SWWIM Every Day, she has recent or forthcoming work in Cimarron Review, Pleiades, Plume, swamp pink, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
Art: Pamela Hobart Carter
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper