Jane L. Carman
Jane L. Carman is the founder of Lit Fest Press, Festival Writer, and the reading series Festival of Language and a reading eXperiment. She holds a PhD from Illinois State University where she is a former Codirector of the Publications Unit and a Sutherland Fellow. Her book, Tangled in Motion, was published by Journal of Experimental Fiction Books in 2015 and is in the second edition. Her critical and creative work can be found in Devil’s Lake, Santa Clara Review, American Book Review, elimae, Palooka, Dirty : Dirty (Jaded Ibis Productions), 580-Split, JAC, and many others. She is currently coauthoring a book a suicide stories with Amy L. Eggert.
A headless snake
striped like fresh high
way neck rough
gnawed away from mind
away from—
no matter which reality
Maybe you did not (openly) feel shame. Or you understood shame, attracted it, embodied it, were given little pieces of it every time you called a parent, every time you handed in an assignment, every time you drove your car or rode your bike, every time you went to the doctor or therapist or your beautician or barber, every time you walked into a gym full of perfection, every time you looked into your crooked mirror.
