Ode To Error

By Jennifer Saunders

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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            “ … Whatever
	    mistakes we make, we will become what we are
	    because of our blunders.”
                        Dorianne Laux “Zulu, Indiana (An Ode to the Internet)”


O stirrup pants, o acid-washed jeans, o single 
black lace glove and rubber bracelets. Forgive me, 
but you were mistakes, all of you, 
you and the thigh-ripped-open jeans
I criss-crossed with skate laces. O big hair,
o green eye shadow, o hanging out on the beach
drinking ill-gotten Bartles & Jaymes and letting JP
of the fake ID unlace me and feed me
vodka-spiked watermelon 
and slide his fingers inside me. 
O dark parking lot, o end of the lane.
O you missteps, you well-practiced mistakes,
you paving of my crooked road. Fender-bender 
in the McDonald’s parking lot 
on the way home from Great America 
because I was too impatient 
to wipe the steam from the back window. 
The ride I hitched with those guys
who turned out to be high
and on shore leave. O narrow escapes.
That haircut sophomore year.
That blue prom dress. Jellies.
Not going to Homecoming with G 
because nice guys scared me
more than JP and his Alabama Slammers.
O grapefruit diet, o Jane Fonda’s Workout, o beginning
of erasure. Daisy Dukes and ankle boots,
D+ in calculus, girl sitting in the back row
chewing her hair. O child, o paving stone,
o boat somebody else rowed. Off-the-shoulder
sweatshirts, “Let’s Get Physical,” o parachute pants—
the kind that were so easy to slip out of.

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Jennifer Saunders (she/her) is the author of Self-Portrait with Housewife (Tebot Bach, 2019), winner of the Clockwise Chapbook Competition. Her poem “Crosswalk” was selected by Kim Addonizio as the winner of the 2020 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize and appeared in Southword. Jennifer's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Grist, Ninth Letter, Pidgeonholes, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. She is also the co-editor of Stained: an anthology of writing about menstruation (Querencia Press, 2023). Jennifer holds an MFA from Pacific University and lives in German-speaking Switzerland.

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• 9/6 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Felicia Zamora and local poet Lolita Stewart-White / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free

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