ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Jordan Cobb (she/her) is a queer American poet. Based in NYC, she completed her MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in The Shore, jmww, The Storms Journal, Rise Up Review, Jet Fuel Review, Camas Magazine, Outskirts Literary Journal, & Fugue Journal.
June 10, 2026
A Love Affair
This morning (which was really afternoon)
the kettle sang on the stove while I tug-of-warred
with the dog. D laughed & asked for his t-shirt back,
handed me the half-empty bottle of Beaujolais
from the night before. Filled a glass of water
at the sink before he asked for my advice
about open relationships & The Other Woman
he’s been seeing. My heart clenched
like my pussy when he pushed me onto the bed sheets.
Flipped the page in the magazine in front of me,
told him he has to say something to her.
Doesn’t have to be details about my hands on his chest,
how we slept late, wrapped in a sailor’s knot
around each other, pulled tight like a noose.
She doesn’t need to know I kiss him
in grocery stores, over pints of Guinness in pubs,
in front of the pup; how, this morning,
when he put me on all fours & slid inside, I worried
whose name he would say. At the coffee shop,
he orders & I pay.
I find my poetry often engages with themes of love,
sex, & power. I’m fascinated by the way relationships are explicitly
defined & implicitly directed; how we view ourselves as players within
these dynamics, gaining & ceding ground to one another. In our
contemporary world, where we’ve developed new language for
long-standing practices, it’s interesting what & how we tell ourselves
the truth. For instance, an open relationship can rapidly turn into a
love triangle & even an affair when the terms of engagement are
violated. One’s role shifts from lover to ‘other woman’ to mistress,
expanding the vocabulary whilst simultaneously disrupting the
possibilities of the future. Searching for love is a bit like climbing
a mountain: vulnerable & full of punishment.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
