Jean Valentine Poems

You who I don't know I don't know how to talk to you

—What is it like for you there?
...

She saying, You don't have to do anything
you don't even have to be, you Only who are,
you nobody from nowhere,
without one sin or one good quality,
...

The branches looked first like tepees,
but there was no emptiness.
...

He was shoveling sand
at the edge of the water, his heavy black glasses
glittered with rain:
...

I have lived in your face.
Have I been you?
...

Friend or no friend,
darkness or light,
...

Red cloth I lie on the ground
otherwise nothing could hold
...

I am twenty,
drifting in la chalupa,
...

I needed a friend but
I was in the other room —
...

In a circle of 12 winter trees
I'm hunched
Remembering being fled from
...