Persephone
by and published in Edition Five of Pomegranate
To the Nymph Flirting With My Husband
Look, little girl, everyone down here knows my husband
is a bag of bones, but he is mine to drag. You dig me?
I bit the bloody fruit, now I get the four bedroom cave.
His combed back hair, his subterranean gas – my kingdom.
So, run away with your little hips and butterfly kisses.
I am not in the mood, ever. My pet bulldog has three heads and fleas.
The Fates taught me how to crochet. I vacation on the Styx.
Do you really think there is room down here for another pulse?
Let me tell you something: I had a cute pair of hips once.
I could step on flowers and the petals wouldn’t mind.
One minute of thinking you’re the prettiest little thing on earth,
then some god notices and you are buried, dead to the masses.
Don’t take it personally but bones hear things. Dirt gossips.
Remember: You will see me one way or another. Choose the reason.
Eight Months in the Bone House
Eight months in the bone house. Even the dust has rigor mortis.
I look into caves of water and do not see myself.
I’ve stopped gasping when the maid tightens my corset.
I am not dying. My husband won’t hear of it, but something
has stopped twitching. It’s the dream that wears me down.
Around 4:00 am (do not ask me how I know the time)
when the graveyard shift drags to a dead halt,
the dream clicks on, flickering behind my eyes.
The theater in my head is all crickets.
The projector’s beam is a tunnel of lit gnats
and I am all bones, locked into a dead end
marriage.
Once, above ground, I knocked an older boy to the floor
after he kicked me in the shinbone. Leg still shrieking,
I looked down at him and spat. He knew
I wouldn’t go down alive. Every time I see that boy in my head,
my shin starts making noises, whimpering like a kicked puppy,
then crackling like a burning witch.
Each night, I lie here and let it hold me,
the dream of what I gave up: I am lying in the grass,
some pulse-driven man beside me, humming.
We are both naked and my back is the surface of a lake.
His kisses skirt my spine like thoughtfully tossed pebbles.
I do not know him by name, only by the impression his lips make.
Never dry, always full. Later, when the sun dies
and other stars take over, the kisses venture down
to where my back rises into a modest hill, then to the valley,
and on.
Every night, I have this dream before I fall asleep.
Sooner or later, my stare will sear grass stains into the ceiling.
My snoring husband throws an arm onto my side of the bed,
I should shift but I just lie here, like nothing has ever happened.
Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones recently received in his BA in English from Western Kentucky University. He’s currently pursuing a MFA in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark. His work has appeared in StorySouth, Barnwood, Zephyrus, and Glass. He’s 22 years old, but prefers to act like he’s 21.