Sunday, October 8, 2023

SKYE JACKSON—"SADE & STEVIE SONNET SEQUENCE" (Issue 26)

SADE & STEVIE SONNET SEQUENCE

i listen to sade with men i love 
foolish & wild, i whisper forever 
glistening like diamonds, so wet, in their beds: 
my spent heart, cold, shakes the four posts again 
don’t mock me as i melt into my gin 
it starts with record players and hot nights 
i find the wrong ones & fail to do right. 
the wine hugs as you call me a good girl. 
desire gussies my throat like ruined pearls. 
there are depths to the sorrow her voice holds: 
sometimes i think you’re just too good for me 
i beg for a cage but you set me free 
i know i’m about to have a breakup— 
stevie’s voice through the cvs speakers 

the cvs dims as stevie’s voice spins: 
when you build your house / then please call me home 
i buy plan b & pads i hope to need. 
the dark blood comes as i drive into work. 
the psychic will call it a miscarriage. 
my soul will call it an answered prayer. 
i look for a man who was never there. 
i call in sick as my bent body roars. 
there are certain debts only women pay. 
who did i destroy? myself, you or us? 
years later, i don’t remember his name: 
the man who stood outside as i shed you. 
sade’s voice purrs through my studio walls: 
will you keep bringing out the best in me?



ABOUT THE POET 

Skye Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. She served as a poetry 
editor for Bayou Magazine and several other publications. Her work appeared or 
is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Green Mountains Review, Rattle, and 
elsewhere. Her debut chapbook A Faster Grave won the 2019 Antenna Prize. She 
was a finalist for the 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize, and in 2021, she won the AWP 
Intro Journals Award. Her work was recently selected by Billy Collins for 
inclusion in the Library of Congress educational programming. This past spring, 
she was crowned the winner of the legendary KGB Open Mic Contest in New 
York City. She currently serves as the 2022 Writer-In-Residence at the Key 
West Literary Seminar in Florida.



ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 


We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 
hear it.

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