Waking Up

Look if you like, but you will have to leap. – Auden

In waiting there is hope—there is hope,

and dread: both somehow preferable

to certainty, if outwardly appropriate,

that may scathe. You are due your ineffable

deliberation, but I’ll concede

in the flash of my waking (in guilt

you hadn’t let me drive,

                                                you fetched a quilt,

                                                            closed

your eyes—

morning caught us hungover and clothed

though no accountability exists,

no reason to diminish, fear, or forgo

this                        ) I was happy. Yeah, I said so.

-by Jen Coleman

Jen Coleman is from Lynchburg, Virginia, where she dropped out of high school. She received a fellowship from the MFA program at Hollins University. “Waking Up” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.