The Lobsters
by Jessica Ballen
Father’s Day, 2016—
picture a lobster family, raw
& skating across our kitchen floor,
their solid forms having come
in contact with an unlikely force:
Pop’s left arm. The stone tile
welcomes the live guts & shell
powdering the place
where we used to walk barefoot.
Jessica Ballen is a disabled poet who's currently completing their MFA in creative writing at Antioch University, where they serve as Editor in Chief of Lunch Ticket, the school's literary magazine. They are also a guest editor for Frontier Poetry. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Wild Roof Journal, and Harbor Review, among others. Their book Kosher was released in early 2023 (Pine Peak Press), and you can find them compulsively posting on their Instagram stories @jessiicaballen.