Janette Schafer shoots

Still Life of a Mexican Sunflower

Janette Schafer paints

Sedona

Janette Schafer collages

Janette Schafer writes

At a gymnastics exhibition

There is a quiet dark girl—

all rage and concentrated muscle—

who flings her body like

a child's ragdoll. I envy

her center of gravity, steadiness

of gaze and body. They call it

tumbling, except she always seems

so sure. I wondered how she

walks on earth after tasting sky.

 

Janette Schafer collages

Janette Schafer collages

Janette Schafer writes

Drowning

                After “Snowdrops” by Louise Gluck

Do you know how it was, how I awoke?

You know what it is to forget to breathe.
Drowning does not require water, I know
this now. The doctor said I might not live,
so it was a surprise, awake again,
flesh raw and opened from the surgeon’s knife.
My nerves, electric, responding to pain,
terrified, but next to your hands and eyes.
My chest is a butterfly, wings unfurled,
plastic tubes dangle like jewels from my chest.

There is something I feel on my temple,
an unknown wound that lies beyond my reach.
My arms have been made useless, tied and bound.
These are new waters; I will learn to swim.

Torso with Lights -- Alexiares

Janette Schafer writes

President Maduro’s Handy Guide to Hyperinflation

               “What was once the most prosperous country in the region
is now a man-made disaster.”  —Virginia Lopez Glass

Take this brick of bills,
pack in mud and clay.
Use to patch the holes
in your ranchito.

Press Simón Bolívar
into your torn camisas.
Sew them closed as long
as the paper will hold.

When stores run out of toilet paper
clean your mierda on the back
of a giant armadillo.
Your feces are worth more.

When your ribs pierce the
torso for want of fat and
muscle mass, boil bolívares
in salt and dirty water.

Tear them first into small pieces
and chew them slowly.
Swallow them with rat blood
so you do not choke.