1 minute read
Known to Us
STEPHANIE JONES
You can’t see your tears until they’ve fallen from your eyes. By then, summoned earthward by gravity as injured birds sea-changed in midair, they aren’t tears anymore. Shadows on pavement, spots on a sofa or just gone.
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When Alice was swept through the keyhole by the will of an ocean, by what began in glands below her brow and blotted across her corneas in deferential blinks, she scarcely recognized what salvation she created from her own despair.
Stephanie Jones writes features for DownBeat, JazzTimes, and NPR Music. Her poetry and micro-fiction appear in Stone Poetry Quarterly and 50-Word Stories. She received her first poetry commission from Blue Note Records for pianist Gerald Clayton’s 2022 release Bells on Sand, and currently teaches at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. She lives in New York and dreams of LA.
