Jennifer McKeen Rodrigues
How to Love in a Toxic Masculine World
An ancestry of sleeping in
A lineage of leaving be
To experience emotion is too extreme
Rooted in fear-of-failure syndrome
You wear ‘like father like son’
But your mother is your poncho
Your grandparents’ names all forgotten
A dialect of non-communication
Bloodline of loveless days drip on
Who were you to think you could buck it
It’s in your genes to sacrifice hope
Err on the side of not giving a good got damn
And to feel no remorse feels right
You didn’t want children to pass your dynasty to
But refuse to see the resemblance
Keep the family tradition alive
Feel nothing love no one
The Military Wife
She grew up fearing officers
Because her DNA carried the
Groveling screams of her
French speaking WWII grandfather
Oh the feel of needing to be
A tall line for the salute to the flag
Camouflage within canned green beans
Lost within isles of another commissary
Cursing her life while drowning in marshes
Of moving boxes and packing paper
Where’s the baby
Oh God, where’s the baby?
Sleeping in a pack ‘n play in the bathroom
I heard her husband doesn’t love her
That he has deep contempt for himself
She goes to the back room to mix
Her sorrow and regret
Lies in an empty bathtub and drinks her
Poison
“These poems explore my family’s experiences with military life and the lasting effects of trauma being handed down through generations. I had to face my own assumptions when I became a military spouse after having heard many stories of my grandmother’s and parents’ experiences, and the fear of potentially being exposed to the same lived stories.” —Jennifer McKeen Rodrigues
Jennifer McKeen Rodrigues currently lives on the sacred Powhatan land of Fairfax, VA. She is trained as a certified yoga therapist & trauma informed yoga teacher, is a queer & neurodivergent military spouse, & mom. She has been featured in many lovely literary journals & anthologies, & has been nominated for Best of the Net with her photography. Find her on Insta @gmoneyfunklove.