Jenna Nesky | Kiddush Levana — for S. | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Jenna Nesky is an autistic poet and a senior at Carver Center for Arts and Technology. From Maryland, she is a graduate of the Adroit Mentorship Program, the Iowa Young Writers Workshop, and Kenyon Young Writers. She is a co-founder and co-president of Young Poets Workshop, and is currently working on a manuscript titled Abecedarian, which deals with her autistic identity.

October 9, 2024

Jenna Nesky

Kiddush Levana — for S.

after Natalie Diaz Once, in a dream (was it day or night?) I stood in a field of flowers and waited for the end. I woke in English class, blinking. You know how it is — I was a girl who aspired to formlessness. Echoing, esoteric, ephemeral. An autistic writer I know wrote a story once about Godhood, a great story I don’t remember. We (autistic) are so creative, I remember thinking, until a flash of sunlight reminded me what I was — a poet who hates sound, sense, touch. On the couch, singing. In the garden, singing. There are forces beyond, the writer said in their low voice. Not the day, not the night, not elation or justice, not eldritch, not anger, not a star or a syllable. Not silence or synonym or war or scatter, or the names they call us, not retard or retarded, not slow, not slow, not a sign or a sigh, not simple, something serious. The end? I asked. Yes, they said. I mean the end. In the garden, tying knots into blades of grass. In bed, the fan spinning above me. At school, sobbing in my desk. My God. My God. Where to go from here? What sun lily or moon flower? What tremble? What trembled? What trembling? What end? I asked them. The end end.