Jake Sheff


Mad Judy in the Graveyard 

3 pm, the sky’s merino wool
moves with Judy, like a mob of one
from the sea. Her path is choked by weeds
war grew, nourished by the throb of one. 

Doe-eyed Judy’s healthy madness came
darkly. Years ago the hours shook
from the news of war. She opened mail
in a room where all but the flowers shook.

Adam died and Judy laughed. “So love’s
war, it makes an opened male for you!”
At his grave, she pees a bit and kneels,
sweeps off dirt to no avail for you. 



Jake Sheff is a pediatrician in Oregon and veteran of the US Air Force. He's married 
with a daughter and six pets. Poems of his are in Radius, The Ekphrastic Review, Crab 
Orchard Review, The Cossack Review and elsewhere. He won 1st place in the 2017 SFPA 
speculative poetry contest and a Laureate's Choice prize in the 2019 Maria W. Faust 
Sonnet Contest. Past poems and short stories have been nominated for the Best of the 
Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook is Looting Versailles (Alabaster 
Leaves Publishing).
 
 

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