Ignorance

1 Minute Read Time

Nights those Jesus bugs skimmed creek’s surface
my bare feet glimmering like risen again I’d snuck

past date palms & horse corrals	graveyard
trilling beyond highway & the boys & their shining

bodies	I’d brought my own	carried it
with me		only newer	sticky

summer air & white flies circling streetlamps
what bliss was mine	those moments before

glistening rocks	before shivering water	& wet
with what could’ve loved me  could’ve hovered me home

Jennifer Givhan

is a Mexican American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the author most recently of the novel Salt Bones (Mulholland Books, 2025). She is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices.

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