Lena

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“Lena” by Jessie Keary is the winner of the 2024 Blackout Poetry Challenge, selected by Palette editors. We’re honored to share this defiant poem with you.

LENA
Bridgeport, CT 1915

A woman, so perfectly made up,

passed upon the streets of Bridgeport.

She worked with several hundred girls.

She was            adept with the use of

_____________liquid rouge,

_____________a model of artistic beauty,

_____________the envy of every woman,
_______

———with     the finest

_____________white silk shirts,

_____________lingerie, tailored

_____________broadcloth suits,

_____________and fancy light

_____________ball dresses

_________________________in her room.

She was hanging a picture when

contour of calf,

actions at ease,

timbre of voice————led to discovery,

no charges —

______-no statute prevents

______-masquerading———in the house.

 

Jessie Keary

Jessie Keary is a queer, trans, Midwestern writer with too many hobbies. For the last few years, he’s been writing a collection of erasure poetry using archived, US newspaper articles about transgender people from the 1860s-1960s. The language of gender identity has evolved, which is often weaponized, as if the experience of being trans is as new as some of the language. Through poetry, Jessie strives to honor the gender-expansive people who have always existed and always will. Their poetry can also be found in Transmasculine Poetics (Sundress Publications), Sweeter Voices Still (Belt Publishing), and various corners of the internet.

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