Oh, James! Poems by Jill McDonough. Number 4 in Volume Three of our limited-edition Summer Kitchen Chapbook Series.  

Cover image: antique quilting fabric, Pennsylvania. Series design by Ron Mohring.

Published: August 10, 2012 [49 copies]
33 pages
$9.00

Jill McDonough‘s books include Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008) and Where You Live (Salt, 2012). The recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the Library of Congress and elsewhere, she teaches at UMass-Boston and directs 24PearlStreet, the online writing program at the Fine Arts Work Center. 

Dr. No [1962]

A woman introduces herself before James
has a chance to speak. But who remembers Trench. Sylvia 
Trench. Didn’t my mother
warn me about trenchmouth? Didn’t
we all practice kissing pillows, our hands, each
other, before we ever kissed a boy? Trench
presses her open
mouth to James’s open mouth, looks
like she’s gumming him to death. 

The girl
is Honey
Ryder.
Honey
talks like Audrey Hepburn
as a little girl, has
no muscle definition,
appears to be sucking it in. 

The locale: Jamaica. There are
no Jamaicans. One girl 

might be
sort of
black.

Of the evil
Chinese, including
Dr. No, most
are white
people, their eyes taped like
Katharine Hepburn’s in The Good Earth, 
Mickey Rooney’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Moneypenny’s
hot. 

• Purchase Jill’s chapbook here.
• Visit Jill’s website here.