Jo Snow

I Do Not Know How to Talk about My Abuse, so I Will Talk around It. 

The stop sign at the corner of the street
has bled an embarrassed shade of red
since we moved here, in summer 2008.

A tire hangs in the neighbor’s
backyard. Morgan and I rip the rubber
into our jean shorts and cotton tees.

The back porch falls dead
asleep with the sticky ache
of cicadas burying the night.

A peach tree pins itself beside
the garage door. Underneath it, our dog
teeths its fruit and raises his leg.

The pinecones scatter into deep weeds
and the wheelbarrow crushes them
under Father’s calloused touch.

The mailbox marks the top of
our driveway. I try and make myself
small enough to fit inside it.

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Jordan Snow (Jo Snow) is a queer Southern writer. They are a trans poet from Wendell, North Carolina, with a BA in Creative Writing from UNC-Chapel Hill. They are a first-year MFA candidate in Poetry at The University of Alabama, a Graduate Council Fellow at UA, national nominee for the AWP’s Intro Journals Project contest and first place winner of the 2022 A.R. Ammons Prize in undergraduate poetry. They’ve worked editorial positions at Short Story UNC, River Styx Magazine and RHINO Poetry.