Jean Anne Feldeisen
New Jersey Pine Barrens
In memoriam M.A.F., 1966–1987
Sixteen, you say you’ll be a Piney. Live alone in a crude hut,
hunt squirrel and possum, spit your tobacco. Sure
you could lose a lot of sins in a million acres
of ugly Pygmy Pines. The Barrens are hot as hell,
dry as sun-bleached bone, yet underneath, a prize—
enough aquifer water for the entire state. You, too, brim
with untapped springs, but want to hide here,
follow the deer trails, kick up dust that settles
as gray slime on perspiring skin while hundreds
of chiggers crawl up your legs, burrow in. Nice—
a lingering itch to remind you of your swim
at a hole in the woods on Oswego River.
You grab onto a rope, swing out, drop deep
into the icy dark of iron-red water. Lucky
I was there that time you couldn’t swim, brother,
snatched your hair as you went down, pulled you safe.
Back to Issue XII…
Jean Anne Feldeisen is a 75-year-old grandmother from New Jersey living on a farm in Maine. A retired psychotherapist, Jean Anne had her first poem published at age 72 in Spank the Carp and more published in The Hopper, The Raven’s Perch, Neologism, Thimble Literary Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, Eunoia, Mockingheart Review, and Fairy Tale Magazine, among other publications and anthologies. Main Street Rag published her first chapbook, Not All Are Weeping, in May 2023. In fall of 2023, she and her friend Argy Nestor self-published their collection of poetry and art, Catching Fireflies.
