by Jennifer Tonge
Jennifer Tonge was born in Salt Lake City and received an MFA from the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in a number of literary journals and was selected for an NEA/Poetry Foundation Poetry Out Loud recitation project. In addition, she has received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Tonge has taught creative writing at the Universities of Utah, Wisconsin, and Texas as well as at Butler University.
The Little Courtesans of Snake Alley
HE SAYS THEY’RE displayed
in glass cases,
nine or ten
or twelve years old,
and the places
that should be flat
are not.
Their faces shine
in opera colors,
and in the spaces
that riddle his description,
I walk again that gauntlet:
snakes writhing opened
from wire nooses,
a naked turtle
gasping on a hook.
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